


Traveling Hearts

by CatKing_Catkin



Series: Traveling Hearts [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Caleb Widogast, Bathing/Washing, Blood, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Canon-Typical Violence, Cats, Developing Relationship, Domestic Violence, Dream Sequences, Drowning, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Jester & Caleb Widogast Friendship, Medical Experimentation, Memory Alteration, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mind Rape, Minor Fjord/Jester (Critical Role), Minor Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf's Backstory, Night Terrors, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Pining, Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Relationship, Recovery, Rescue Missions, Resurrection Rituals, Self-Harm, Self-Sacrifice, Sexual Assault, Spoilers up through Episode 18, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, Torture, Vampires, Vomiting, Whump, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-05 12:39:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 116,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14618751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: A figure from Lucien's past shows up to collect on an old arrangement. When Molly doesn't want to talk business, the stranger takes him and the Mighty Nein for himself instead.Caleb is only just able to get Jester to safety in time. But when the rest of his friends fall victim to their captor's vampiric thrall, that leaves him trapped and alone against the twisted attentions and easy cruelty of a wizard more powerful than he's ever dreamed of being.Jester struggles to understand her enemies and make a plan of attack. Her friends are counting on her to save them, even if some of them don't know it anymore, and so she is determined to be the light in the darkness for them and all the people of Tanner's Crossing.With a little bit of magic and a little bit of research and a whole lot of determination as they fight their own battles, Caleb and Jester might just save their friends before they lose themselves in the bargain.





	1. Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a million to my beta, ynfernalis, for helping me vet Caleb's Zemnian and saving me from the mercies of Google Translate. Keeping an eye out for the word rep was a big help, too.
> 
> In the nebulous future of this fic, everyone in the party is Level 8.
> 
> Stock note - I consider DND mechanics to be a fine and interesting spice to add to fanfic, but if I've missed something, or if a contradictory detail has come up in later episodes, please don't tell me. I appreciate that you want to help but all it does is stress me out, especially if it's a detail that the fic unravels without.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mighty Nein is rudely awakened. Most of them quickly decide not to mind much.

It started when Caleb’s alarm spell went off.

Being woken by that particular spell was never a pleasant experience, but it was better than never waking up at all. Caleb’s eyes flew open and he sat straight up, looking around frantically, mumbling to himself in an attempt to chase the cobwebs from his head: “No, no, no…”

Nott was on watch, her silhouette limned in orange firelight. She glanced over to him, took in his expression in an instant, and didn’t even have to ask what was wrong. He saw her stand and draw her crossbow in one fluid movement, scanning the brush around them. “Get the others up,” she hissed to him.

Caleb gulped, nodded, and moved to do as he was bidden. The commanding confidence, the steel in Nott’s voice, helped him feel a little bit braver as well, at least enough to jolt him into action. He woke Fjord, then Jester, then Beauregard, and finally Molly was up and grabbing for his scimitars.

“I don’t hear anything,” Nott whispered as they all got themselves ready.

“Caleb? Lights?” Beau called, even as she fitted her goggles over her face.

Caleb nodded and, with a whisper and a pinch of phosphorous, sent four orbs of golden light spiraling to the edges of the camp, lighting up the shadowed edges, chasing away the ragged night mist. Still, as they all turned to scan the perimeter, watching one another’s flanks, they saw nothing.

“You sure it wasn’t just a big bird?” Beau asked, after a few moments had passed.

“I am very, very careful to exclude birds of all sizes from the spell’s effects,” Caleb replied, as he spun his diamond anxiously through his fingers.

Fjord still looked wary. “Could something that’s even more magical have gotten past it?”

Caleb shook his head. “But it did _not_ get past it. I am awake, we are all awake, so we know the spell worked as, as it should have.”

“That it did,” said a jovial sort of voice from right behind Molly. “Quite the handy little spell it was, too.”

Every single one of them panicked momentarily – Molly whirled around, slicing his scimitars through the air, Nott fired off into the dark, Fjord shot an eldritch blast that took a chunk out of a nearby tree. Yet when the tumult died, the stranger still stood before them, unharmed, unruffled.

He was the most average man Caleb had ever seen. That was the thing that struck him at first. He was wearing very fine clothes but even Caleb could see that they were being worn in an attempt to disguise the fact that here was a thoroughly average, unmemorable figure. Caleb made an actual, active effort to be someone that no one wanted to look at for very long, but this man…

“Lucien!” the stranger said, throwing his arms out wide and stepping forward as if to embrace Molly like a long lost brother.

Molly bared his teeth and took three steps back, crossing his scimitars in front of him to ward the stranger off. Apparently, being woken up in such suspicious circumstances had left him with no patience for pretending this night. The newcomer took the hint, at least, stopped and lowered his arms and stared at Lucien with his head slightly tilted and a smile that seemed, even to Caleb, to be a very worrying sort of smile.

“Oh, Lucien.” He sighed and shook his head, acting the part of a disappointed school teacher _almost_ well enough to be convincing. But he kept on smiling all the while, like he hadn’t expected much in the first place. “I thought just the fact that I was able to track you down this far would help you see that running wasn’t really an option anymore. Be _reasonable_ , please. That’s _all_ I ask.”

Molly’s hands were shaking around the hilts of his weapons. It wasn’t much of a tremor, maybe so small that the stranger didn’t notice. Caleb did, however, and so did the others, their attention torn between the threat and the effect it was having on their friend. They gathered in around him without so much as a word, and Molly seemed to take some comfort from that, enough to find his voice again. “You’ve got the wrong tiefling, friend. But I’m in a forgiving mood. Turn around and walk away and we can all chalk this up to a shared hallucination.” His voice was a growl and edged with the guttural accent of Infernal, before dropping into Infernal entirely. _“Chasing the wrong secrets can leave you a dead man.”_

Caleb held his breath, waiting to see if the magic would have any effect. The stranger winced, half-raising a hand to his head…then he shook his head, shook it off, and laughed. He threw back his head and laughed, the sound of a man who has just heard a sincerely funny joke and is enjoying himself immensely. “I _know_! Have you forgotten that was the point all along, Lucien?”

Then he smiled just a little too wide and reached for his pocket slowly. Nott immediately loaded another bolt into her crossbow. Caleb felt sparks of flame dancing through his fingers as he held the spell at the ready and held his breath.

The stranger pulled out a small, gleaming, silvery orb and started to twirl it through his fingers just the same way Caleb was doing, and Caleb knew that all their fears had just been proven entirely substantiated. “Spell component!” he called out, and fired over the top of Jester’s head just as Nott took her shot. His chromatic orb hit the newcomer in the face and exploded in a bloom of fire and Caleb swallowed down bile. Nott’s crossbow bolt thudded into his shoulder hard enough to send him staggering back a pace. Beau stepped in front of Molly and Molly activated his scimitars and Jester conjured up her spiritual weapon and Fjord called his falchion to hand.

Then suddenly, from the depths of the smoke still swirling around the stranger, Caleb heard an arcane word barked out and _felt_ a spell take shape.

Then Caleb saw the earth itself rise up around Mollymauk Tealeaf and swallow him up and drag him down and then their friend was just _gone_ before he even had time to cry out. Beau yelled “no!” and dived to save him but by the time she covered the scant inches between them there was nothing left but some disturbed earth of the sort that might mark a freshly dug grave.

Pandemonium broke out after that.

Jester screamed in fury and brought her spiritual weapon around in a swing that could have felled a tree. Fjord lunged in with his falchion, Nott followed after him with her hands crackling with shocking force. Beau scrabbled at the dirt, hyperventilating, looking as terrified as Caleb had ever seen her before her gaze snapped up to him and she snarled: _“Do something!”_

Caleb was already casting his spell, trying hard to block out the sounds of combat from his concentration. He didn’t know exactly what had been done here, but he’d learned enough magic on his own by now that sometimes he didn’t _need_ to. He sent a wave of anti-magic force at the ground where Molly had been, hoping to dispel whatever had just been done.

Then he found that there was no magic there to dispel.

Desperately hoping to confirm something, Caleb followed up with a spell to try and locate Molly himself. Again, he felt nothing, which meant that the tiefling was not in range, not within a thousand feet in any direction.

“He’s not under there!” he cried, daring to hope, looking up at Beau just as the stranger pounced. Their opponent bore the monk to the ground even as she punched him with one hand and scrabbled for her staff with the other, but her attacks barely seemed to make him flinch.

“Why are you fighting me?” Caleb heard him whisper to her. “Why can’t we just be friends, like Lucien was supposed to be?”

Beau snarled in his face, tried to hit him in the jaw…and then went still and slack, slumping back onto the ground.

“I don’t know,” Caleb heard her say, in a dreamy and fond tone of voice that sounded as unlike her as Caleb had ever heard. Trying desperately not to panic now, Caleb readied the diamond again and spun it, gathering flecks of frost around it and aiming at the stranger’s back, mostly sure that he could hit him without hitting Beau and deciding that would just have to do for now.

“ _Don’t!”_ Nott yelped, leaping on Caleb’s back and making him stumble, shattering his concentration. “What are you _doing_? He’s our friend, don’t hurt him!”

“ _Was zur hölle_  are you talking about?!” Caleb demanded, trying for the first time he could remember to throw Nott off of his back. She would not be budged, digging her claws into his clothes, and so Caleb cast around desperately to see what else might have gone wrong in the few seconds he’d been occupied. Fjord was on the ground – wounded or simply stunned, Caleb didn’t know. But as he watched, Jester cast a spell that got him stumbling back up to his feet. He tried to rejoin the fray, with Jester hot on his heels, but suddenly there was no fray to rejoin.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Beau said, stepping in between her friend and her foe. “Hold on a second, maybe we should talk about this!”

Shock brought Fjord up short, head slightly tilted, an expression of utter disbelief on his face. “What the _fuck_?” Beau didn’t get the chance to answer before the stranger darted around her in a blur of speed and grabbed Fjord by the throat.

Caleb watched it all with wide eyes and a racing heart, and did some very quick mental math.

“Nott?” he asked, trying desperately to keep his voice from trembling as badly as the rest of him was. He or Jester were next, after all. “I am sorry I tried to attack our new friend. You…you know I am not at my best when I am woken suddenly. Please get down. I…I need to go to Jester. I need to get something from her.”

“Not something that will hurt him, right?” asked Nott doubtfully, and it broke his heart and froze his spine to hear her doubting him.

Still, at least he didn’t have to lie to her now. “No.”

Nott made a satisfied sort of sound and got down off his back. “All right! I know how much you hate being woken up so suddenly. Not much of a fan of it either, myself. But this…this is going to be good for us, Caleb! I just know it.”

She tried to take his hand. He pulled his hand away and tried to ignore how much it hurt to do so and raced for Jester instead.

“Caleb, what is going on?!” she demanded as he got close. She looked almost as scared as he probably did. Yet relief to see _one_ of his friends still here, still talking and seeing sense, left Caleb feeling dizzy. Or maybe that was the holy energy he could feel thrumming through the air around her. She had at least maintained her wits enough to cast a protective enchantment. That meant she was doing much better than he felt, right now. That meant she had bought them some time and he might still be able to save her.

“One moment, please,” he stammered. Caleb clicked his fingers and suddenly his hands were full of Frumpkin. He lifted the cat until they were at eye level and kissed his familiar’s forehead. “Listen to Jester. Whatever she asks. Help her however you can.”

He felt Frumpkin agree, solemn and without hesitation. Maybe the cat knew more about what they were fighting than Caleb did, knew enough to be afraid as well, but there was no time to ask. Instead, he shoved Frumpkin into Jester’s hands and shoved them both away from him as hard as he could. Jester’s cry of alarm mixed with the words of the spell he spoke. Frumpkin’s eyes blazed blue from edge to edge as Caleb channeled the magic across the bond they shared and through the cat.

A hole tore open in the fabric of space as Jester stumbled back, and on the other side was a different patch of woods, as far from here as he could manage. Jester fell through the door he’d made and landed hard on the other side. She looked back at him, confused and terrified, and he had just enough time to see her reaching back for him and know that she was safe before the rift mended itself and something hit Caleb hard enough to knock him to the ground, dazed.

The stranger was on top of him, pinning Caleb’s hands on either side of his head with a grip so strong Caleb felt his bones creaking. “Why did you do that?” the nightmare asked, his breath ghosting cold over Caleb’s ear. “Why did you send her away? I want to be _friends_. Don’t you understand that? Wouldn’t you rather we be friends?”

He grabbed Caleb by the hair and yanked his head up so that their gazes met and suddenly Caleb felt like he was drowning.

The man had red eyes _(but they were very nice red eyes)_ and his smile was too wide _(but at least he was smiling after they’d all tried to hurt him)_. His teeth were gleaming, his teeth looked so..sharp _(don’t worry, don’t look at that, it’s okay, shh)_.

Caleb felt the stranger’s will bearing down on his like a wave, trying to press thoughts that were not his into his head, trying to twist and turn his feelings until this man who had just buried Mollymauk alive was his friend. He was all too familiar with the feeling, but that didn’t mean he’d ever been much good at fighting it.

So it almost worked. Then, with the last shred of will he could cling to, Caleb called upon the mote of possibility nestled safely in his chest and bought himself a second chance. It was sheer luck it had been his turn to use it today, and he wasn’t about to waste that.

He felt the mote flicker and sputter out, spent, and suddenly Caleb could breathe a little easier, suddenly the whispers weren’t as loud and there was only _him_ in his own head.

And suddenly he could remember why it might just be a good idea to keep pretending that _wasn’t_ the case.

“I...” His voice failed him for a moment, because without having succumbed to the domination effect there was no ignoring the fact that he was being pinned by a vampire. Caleb swallowed, flexed his fingers, and tried again. “I don’t know...” He tried to make his voice the same as Beau’s had been. He tried to force his expression into something fond for this cold, sharp _monster_ , he tried to seem sorry and innocent and clueless. “I am sorry.”

The vampire stared down at him without so much of a flicker in his eyes for a long moment, as Caleb wondered desperately if this had worked while trying not to let that desperation show on his face.

Then the vampire smiled, got up off of him, and dragged Caleb to his feet. “Well,” he said. “Apology accepted. It’s not as though it’s an irreparable mistake, anyway. Little goblin?” he pointed at Nott, who tapped her chest. “Yes. Would you please go and try to find your friend? These woods aren’t a safe place to be alone at night.”

Almost as if on cue, a wolf howled somewhere in the distance, long and forlorn.

Nott still looked a little uncertain. “Maybe one of them should do it,” she said, nodding towards Beau and a similarly blank-eyed Fjord. “I should keep an eye on Caleb. He still looks a little...dizzy.”

The vampire draped an arm heavily around Caleb’s shoulder and pulled him closer, and Caleb was forced to swallow back a whimper, staring at his feet as his world came to pieces around him. “But _I’ll_ keep an eye on him. You don’t need to worry about that at all! You trust me, right?”

“Of course!” Nott answered without hesitation. “I guess that makes sense, then.” She walked over to the two of them and patted Caleb’s hand. “I’m just going to go find Jester, and then I’ll be back soon. Nothing to worry about!”

Caleb nodded miserably without looking up. He didn’t trust his voice and he didn’t trust her not to see the truth in his eyes.

“Just don’t be gone long,” said the monster. “If you haven’t found her by dawn, come back and join up with us. We’ll be heading back towards Tanner’s Crossing. You know where that is, right?”

“Of course! We were just on our way there anyway.”

“I _know_.” He sounded delighted and pleased with himself. “I’m so glad I was able to be your welcoming committee. It’s always nice to have new friends, isn’t it, Caleb?”

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb whispered, as his stomach roiled.

Nott moved a little closer and ducked her head so she could peer up at him. Caleb flinched before he could stop himself, wondering if he was doomed and hating himself for wondering because this was _Nott_ he was thinking about and yet her eyes were so _wrong_. Even if the way she smiled and squeezed his hand was just what he was used to, her eyes were wrong and he knew if he begged her not to leave him with this thing she would not listen.

“Everything’s going to be just fine!” his best friend said. “This is going to be good for us. You’ll see. It’s like you said, Caleb – strength in numbers, right?”

“Right.”

He found the strength to smile for her by holding on to the idea that _would_ be okay, eventually. He would make certain of it.

He would find an opportunity to find Mollymauk and burn this monster to ashes and then everything would be just fine.

It was a difficult lie to tell himself, because Caleb knew himself and knew that he was not strong all on his own and he was not brave and on top of a vampire he was obviously dealing with a wizard on a level far above him.

But he managed to tell it just well enough that, when Nott walked away and the vampire shoved him forward, Caleb was able to walk without stumbling. Fjord was already getting the horses ready, Beau was already sprawled comfortably in the cart. Caleb joined her there, as did their captor, who settled in as easily as if he’d owned the cart and its occupants and the horses all along.

“Aw, man,” Beau grumbled as they set off back towards the road. “Did Jester take the haversack when she ran off?”

Caleb’s heart skipped a beat. “I suppose she did. Probably panicked.”

“Still! I left some good shit in there. Gonna have to have a talk with that girl when Nott brings her back.”

Caleb prayed that he would also get the chance to talk to Jester again, and that Nott would not find her at all. He wished he still had his cat. There was absolutely nothing useful he could have instructed Frumpkin to do right now, but he could have warmed his hands in the cat’s fur and maybe they wouldn’t be _shaking_ so much that he had to bury them in his pockets to keep up the illusion.

“Well!” said the monster, clapping his hands as the cart rolled along through the dark. “I suppose introductions are in order. I am Maxwell Virago, but just Maxwell will do fine. I know you must all be tired, but never fear – we’ll be home soon.”

*  *  *

Jester had no idea where she was. These were very big woods, and they’d only set up camp on the very outskirts of them, easily in sight of the road. Now she was so deep in the thick of them that the branches almost blocked out the stars overhead.

Frumpkin seemed to have half a clue, however, and so she was following the cat.

“That’s a good kitty,” she whispered as they wound their way through the dark trees. “Find me a Caleb! And then stay back when I smack him in the face!”

She was pretty sure she was joking. Besides, she was equally sure that if she didn’t stay angry she’d let herself be scared instead. Jester hadn’t realized until now how out of practice she’d gotten at being alone, and it wasn’t lost on her that now was perhaps the worst time to realize that.

Caleb might not even be Caleb when she found him again, not really. He might be all glassy-eyed and smiley and weird and in love with a monster like Beau had been. Maybe Fjord was, too, by now, or Nott! Maybe all her friends weren’t her friends anymore.

Jester told herself stubbornly that that would be fine, as long as they were _alive_. But to make sure they stayed that way, she had to catch up.

“Wish I could have stolen the cart, too.”

Almost as if to make her point for her, she stumbled over a fallen branch that she’d missed while hyperfocusing on the cat. Jester stumbled and yelped, more in surprise than pain, and as the sound died away it was replaced by the howling of wolves.

Then the sound of a familiar voice.

“Jester? Is that you?”

Jester’s heart leaped up into her throat. “Nott?!” she called back, waving in the direction she thought she’d heard the voice coming from. “Nott, I’m over here!” She heard familiar footsteps racing through the dead leaves and over fallen twigs towards her, until she saw Nott emerge from the underbrush at a run, grinning at the sight of her.

“There you are!” her friend said, hurrying over to grab Jester’s hand. “I’ve been looking all over! Everyone’s worried sick!”

“ _You_ were worried sick? _I_ was worried sick!” Jester laughed and threaded her fingers through Nott’s. “I guess Caleb wasn’t really paying attention to where he sent me. What a jerkface. But how about you? I was afraid you guys would all be all brainwashed and crazy by the time I got back!”

“Oh, nothing like that! It was all just a misunderstanding.” Nott laughed and waved her free hand dismissively. “Now come on! We can probably catch up with the cart if we hurry. Shouldn’t be too long a ride back to Max’s house.”

Jester stopped dead, and dug in her heels when Nott tried to pull her forward. “’Max’?” she asked quietly, as the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

“Maxwell Virago!” Nott declared, grabbing on to Jester’s hand with both of hers’ now and trying harder to tug her along. “Our new friend and employer! You’ll really like him, Jester, he’s great. If you’ll just come…with…me…” She was panting slightly with effort, now, but Jester refused to be budged.

“What about Molly?” she asked quietly, staring into Nott’s eyes and searching for any sign of the horror that still had Jester’s heart in a vice grip. Molly had just _disappeared_ , dragged below the earth. Was he still down there? Why was Nott smiling about the one who had done something like that to their friend?

Nott did look a little hesitant, and that was the only reason Jester didn’t burst into tears there and then. “Well…” she said, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. “I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding. Molly, he…he shouldn’t have been so aggressive! Max was just defending himself. I’m sure it’s all fine, Jester, I’m sure Molly is fine and Max will explain everything and…”

“Fuck Maxwell,” Jester said, with feeling, and tore her hand free from Nott’s grip. “I am not going to listen to anything he says and I am not going with you while you’re like this!”

“Oh.” Nott’s face fell and she started chewing on her claws in agitation. “Oh no. Oh, I’m really sorry, Jester, I’m _really_ sorry, but I don’t want to make him mad. So…”

She pointed at Jester and shot a bolt of magic from her hand that hit Jester and left all her muscles locked in an instant. Jester rocked and swayed and fell over into the dirt and dead leaves, and Nott immediately resumed the work of dragging her onwards. “I’m sorry,” the goblin whispered. “I’m _really_ sorry but it’s all going to be okay, you’ll see, it’s _agh!_ ”

Frumpkin was suddenly a demon of yowling, spitting, clawing rage. Life and warmth and control flooded Jester’s body as Nott’s concentration was broken, as she was forced to grab at the cat who had leaped on top of her head and was clawing at her face. “Get off!” Nott shrieked. “Get _off!_ ”

“Sorry, Nott,” Jester said, and meant it, and fired a hold spell of her own back at the goblin. Nott froze mid-struggle and toppled over, her expression fixed in one of rage and panic. Frumpkin immediately hopped off and ran to Jester’s arms without Jester having to give the word, and the two of them ran in a random direction and didn’t stop until Jester’s lungs were screaming for air.

When she couldn’t run another step, Jester slumped to her knees, panting. Frumpkin hopped lightly out of her grip and onto the grass and sat down patiently while Jester caught her breath.

When Jester looked up, the cat’s eyes were blue from edge to edge as it looked back at her. She felt her heart skip a beat. “Caleb?” she asked hesitantly, leaning a little closer. “Caleb, is that you? Can you see me?”

Frumpkin started to wash his face, which was an unhelpful answer to say the least. Jester let out a huff of irritation. “Right,” she grumbled. “Too far away.” She vaguely remembered that Caleb could only tell Frumpkin what to do if he was kind of close, and they were both probably out of the range of any spell by now. Still, it was good to see that he was checking in. Good to know that he was alive.

Except then her stomach lurched and Jester wondered if it _was_ a good thing. What if Caleb was like Nott right now, what if he was only spying on her so that monster could come and get her and make her forget all about Molly?

“Frumpkin?” she asked. “Maybe you know. Blink twice if Caleb is being mind-controlled right now.” Caleb’s last command had been for Frumpkin to listen to her, after all, and if he was too far away to give other orders this was probably safe to ask.

Frumpkin stared fixedly at Jester for several seconds, until she sighed with relief. “Okay, good.” She reached out and pulled the cat and the wizard inside it onto her lap, scratching Frumpkin’s chin and then his ears. Maybe Caleb felt that. She hoped it felt nice.

“Thank you for saving me,” she whispered to him. The world felt huge and dark and vast around her, and seemed to drink in the sound of her voice like it was nothing at all. “I wish you had come with me, but…it was really cool and brave of you to stay back and try to save everybody. Even if it looks like it didn’t work and you all got captured anyway. I just saw Nott. I don’t know if you were here for that. I…I had to cast a spell on her and run away and it _really_ sucked, Caleb, I hate everything about this so I’m really glad you’re still here.”

Frumpkin butted his chin up against her face and purred. Jester swallowed painfully, trying to blink her eyes clear of the tears that had threatened to spill forth from her along with the words. “Okay,” she said, getting to her feet and dusting off her dress. “I hate everything about this, but…I am still going to save you. All of you. Okay, Frumpkin, you lead the way. Find me a wizard.”


	2. Night One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb gets the lay of the land and meets some of the cleaning staff.

Beau squeezed his hand, and Caleb blinked himself back to his body. He still felt the memory of Jester’s fingers scratching gently through his hair. It had felt a little nice.

“Thank you,” he whispered, glancing at her.

“No sweat.” She kept her voice down, which he was grateful for. He’d hoped to check on Jester without their captor knowing. Fortunately, framing it as “not wanting to bother” Maxwell had gotten Beau to take up her usual spot watching over him in that state without protest or further question.

But now his moment had passed, and Maxwell was swinging gracefully back into the cart with them. “Thank you for indulging me, Fjord. Please, let’s get moving again.”

“Sure,” Fjord said dully, without looking back, and Caleb tilted his head because Fjord sounded so…sad, all of a sudden, so grim and tired and sad. He wondered again what Maxwell had said to him. He knew better than to ask when their captor was right next to him, scarcely an inch between them. At least when he risked a glance over at Beau, she looked equally concerned and confused even if she didn’t ask.

The half-orc snapped the reigns to get the horses moving again. Caleb tried not to flinch away as the vampire settled down uncomfortably close to Caleb once more, an arm around his shoulders.

Maxwell had called a halt all of a sudden, explaining that he needed to talk to Fjord in private for a few moments. They’d gone a few feet away from the cart, far enough that Caleb couldn’t hear what was being said and hadn’t had the nerve to risk getting close enough to try. He’d just decided to take his chance instead, and now found that he could breathe a little easier.

Jester was alive. Jester was alive and had run away from Nott and was going to try to save them. He was not alone in this. And maybe Nott would get lost long enough for the enchantment to run out, she’d never been good in the wilderness.

Of course, that left Caleb in an unenviable situation. He knew he could have run, perhaps here and now, and maybe even gotten away if Maxwell didn’t think him worth chasing. But that would have left Fjord and Beau undefended before Maxwell’s will, and left Caleb without any leads about how to get to Mollymauk.

He had to do this. He had to see this through, for their sake.

He was not a brave man but part of that meant he was more scared to lose them than he’d ever thought possible. So he focused on that, and the fact that Maxwell could _definitely_ catch Caleb if he wanted to, and just tried to keep breathing.

The cart rattled along, nearer to Tanner’s Crossing, and then around it and up a steep hill towards a manor home that overlooked the landscape.

 _We are being kidnapped_. The thought hit Caleb strangely dully, as Beau and Maxwell talked amiably over his head. The terror was leaden, now, rather than sharp, a heavy weight on the back of his mind that was too big for words but easier to think around. _We are being kidnapped and what friends I have left are smiling about it._ He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to realize that.

The horses were puffing a little with effort as they worked their way up the hill, before Maxwell gave Caleb’s shoulder a little shake to get his attention. “Did I see she stole your cat?” he asked quietly, as if the words were just for the two of them.

“O-Oh, um, yes,” Caleb stammered, keeping his eyes on his hands. “That was, um...unfortunate. He is a very good cat.”

“I’m sure he was. Nevermind. I can supply you with anything you require. You can summon half a dozen new cats.”

“That...” That was a strange enough remark that Caleb couldn’t help but frown. “That is, um, not how familiars work.”

“It’s not?” And Maxwell already sounded bored of talking about it. “Oh. That’s a shame. Nevermind.”

That was...interesting and strange and perhaps useful to know. Caleb filed that detail away for later, felt a little better in doing so, and was grateful despite himself when their captor moved away to keep talking to Fjord instead. In the meantime, he stared down at the town below them, trying to memorize details in the dark.

Eventually, they reached the top of the hill and Fjord led the horses towards a stable set up not far from the house. Once the cart stopped, Maxwell hopped out and held out a hand to Caleb to help him down. Caleb bit the inside of his cheek and took the offer and tried to ignore how cold the other man’s fingers were.

“Fjord,” the vampire said without looking over at Fjord. “Be a friend and get the horses settled, will you? Beauregard, dear, would you mind staying out here with me for a moment? I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

 _Her name is Beau_ , Caleb thought, with a ferocity that surprised him, that was perhaps only possible now that the vampire had his back to him and Caleb could glare daggers in it. _Caleb_ was the only one who got to call her by her full name. Even he could see he was the only one who didn’t make her uncomfortable in doing so, though he’d never understood why. Maybe just because he was weird in a similar way that she was.

Except Beau did not look uncomfortable right now, Beau looked curious but didn’t even blink at the presumption. “Sure thing,” she said instead, waving Maxwell back into the cart.

“Wonderful,” Maxwell said, and moved to join her. “Caleb, you can go ahead and go inside. You look exhausted.” He waved a hand dismissively in Caleb’s direction and then settled down to whisper to Beau, just as he had to Fjord earlier. Caleb’s curiosity nearly overcame him, he nearly tried to get closer to hear what was being said, but his nerve failed him, or maybe it was just that his wits caught up with him. What would he do, depending on what he heard? What difference would it make, beyond possibly making him seem even more suspicious and damaging the ruse he desperately needed to maintain?

Even so, he lingered for a moment by the door, straining his ears to listen in the quiet night. The best he could tell was that they were talking about Molly and Jester. Probably Maxwell was spinning more pretty lies to keep Beauregard from worrying inconveniently. He didn’t trust himself not to react if he heard what they were, so Caleb opened the door and stepped inside his new prison.

It was…a rich person’s home. That was the first thought that struck him as he stepped inside. It reminded him vaguely of what he’d seen of Diana Pucine’s mansion before it blew up. Yet as he paced slowly through the entrance hall, taking in details, counting doors, other details leaped out at him. The place was sporadically dusty, the brass fixings smudged and tarnished in scattered but noticeable places, as if whatever help Maxwell was hiring to maintain the place was not very good at the job. There were also strange…fluid stains scattered here and there.

Curiosity overcame fear. Caleb stepped over to one of the stains, knelt down, and reached out to touch it. The smell once he got close, however, was telling all on its own. Whatever ichor had stained the stone floors had long since dried, but the smell of a corpse was much more stubborn.

“ _Ich bin gefickt!_ ” Caleb swore vehemently, scrambling back to his feet and staring around with renewed wariness. When he still didn’t see any of the zombies that apparently served as cleaning staff in this place, Caleb still put his back in a corner and tried to think of what to do next.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to remember that he still had a spell he could cast. He rummaged around in his pockets, pulled out a forked twig, and whispered the words for a spell to let him locate objects. The specific object he focused on was one of Mollymauk’s scimitars. If they were within a fifth of a mile of him, this spell would let him know, and the house hadn’t looked _that_ big. And if Maxwell would have sent him anywhere, it would probably have been somewhere in here, a place where it would be convenient for him to get to work trying to wring memories out of the wrong man.

He focused hard enough to give himself a headache, but eventually Caleb sighed in frustration and let the spell fade. Nothing. That didn’t necessarily mean anything in and of itself – the spell he’d cast earlier, to locate people, was a more effective form of this spell in virtually every way. He wished he hadn’t panicked and wasted it earlier. Now his efforts could be stopped by lead as thin as a sheet, at least until tomorrow when he could recover his energy.

Assuming he lived that long.

He quite liked the idea of continuing to hide in a corner, but Caleb gulped, hummed to himself for a moment in an attempt to steady his nerves, and finally managed to drag himself out of it to continue exploring.

He hurried up the stairs and down the lefthand hall. This could be his last chance to get a sense of this place under his own power.

The mansion had three floors, though the entrance hall was open to two of them. A lot of the rooms seemed to be dusty and unused, musty bedrooms and ancient studies and empty servants quarters. The top floor was better maintained than the second, and there were more locked doors. He had to believe that meant either this was where Maxwell slept, if vampires did sleep, or where he kept his prisoners.

He also discovered that there were definitely, absolutely zombie housekeepers.

“No thank you, don’t want any,” Caleb panted as he outran the two he’d discovered in a side room. Their moans echoed down the hall behind him. He stumbled to a stop at a staircase leading back down and debated whether he wanted to take it or try hiding. He could hear voices downstairs, Beau’s and Fjord’s and Maxwell’s, and they were probably looking for him but he wanted to try to avoid being found as long as possible.

Maybe he could circle around them and get back down the ground floor, he hadn’t really had a chance to try a lot of the doors down there because he’d been too busy trying to map the place out in his head.

Caleb’s spine went rigid with shock as he heard a door slowly creak open behind him. He looked around to see a grey-skinned figure with empty eyes and a slack jaw and _no throat_ come slowly shuffling out into the hallway a scant foot away from him.

Its face turned slowly toward his. It let out a death rattle that might have been piteous under other circumstances and shuffled closer, reaching out to him with a partially rotted hand and he tried to step back and almost lost his balance entirely as his foot met nothing but empty air.

Caleb’s courage gave out, then. He didn’t even entirely consciously decide to do what he did next but the next thing he knew he’d extended an arm and spoken the words and the zombie was on fire, howling and wailing as it burned slowly but surely to ask.

The smell was appalling and it was so, so hard to breathe all of a sudden. Caleb pressed a hand against his mouth, turned, and stumbled down the stairs only to be confronted with the other three coming around the corner to meet him.

“Hey, man, you okay?” Beau asked, raising an eyebrow at the sight of him.

“I don’t think so,” Fjord answered, pointing over Caleb’s head to the fire blazing merrily upstairs.

“ _Shit_ ,” Beau swore, and shoved past him to dash upstairs and check on it. He heard her beating at the flames with her cloak, as Fjord hurried up to help. “Aw, Caleb, you killed a housekeeper!”

Caleb realized that this meant he’d just been left more or less alone with Maxwell. The vampire stared fixedly at him, and beyond that his expression was indiscernible.  

“It, it was already d-dead,” Caleb tried to protest, teeth chattering, heart racing, unable to look away from the vampire walking slowly nearer to him.

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Beau said, as she came back downstairs, only slightly singed. “That doesn’t mean it was gonna hurt you.”

“There’s spells and such, to control the undead. Make ‘em harmless,” Fjord added, as he took up position on Caleb’s other side. He looked a little sheepish, at least, and tried to soothe Caleb by rubbing his back a little. Under any other circumstances, it might have helped, or at least Caleb would have appreciated the attempt. Now it did less than nothing, besides making his nerves hum with even more tension. “Sorry, we…thought you knew.”

“You would have, if you hadn’t gone snooping,” Beau added, folding her arms and frowning at him. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Caleb’s gaze fell to his feet as he tried to get his thoughts in order. He absolutely knew that there were spells to control the undead, but he also knew that this did not remotely mean they were harmless. He didn’t know if their words were a product of simple misinformation or magically-induced belief. He finally managed to make himself glance over at Fjord, perhaps to ask him more, perhaps to gauge the extent of the misunderstanding, but what he saw there made Caleb’s thoughts fly apart all over again.

He made a desperate, pathetic, panicked noise. His gaze snapped over to Beau to see if it was as bad as he feared and _of course it was_.

Both of them were bleeding from the throat. Not as bad as the zombie had been, but there were two holes _in their necks_. And they were looking at him like _he_ was the one who’d gone insane.

“Dude,” Beau said, sounding concerned as she ever did, reaching out to take his arm like she was getting ready to stop him from collapsing. “Seriously, are you okay? I know it’s been a long night, but…”

“You are _bleeding_ ,” he whispered and yes, he really was starting to feel a little weak at the knees. “Both of you.” Too much, this was too much, he couldn’t keep standing between them like this while Maxwell looked him over with such reptilian _patience_. Caleb pushed away from both of them and even if he only managed to slump back against a wall instead, it was something solid and real to lean against while he shook like a dead leaf.

Beau stared blankly at him, before comprehension seemed to dawn. She lifted a hand to the wounds on her neck and winced. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “That. Well, so, uh…here’s the explanation you missed. Maxwell is this thing called a vampire, and vampires need to…”

_“I know what a vampire is.”_

He didn’t mean to snap, he truly didn’t, and Caleb didn’t realize until the words were already out of his mouth that he’d just tipped, if not his whole hand, then certainly a couple of cards.

That mistake was fully driven home to him when Maxwell was suddenly _right in front of him_ and Caleb only just managed to muffle a yelp with his hands. He looked up at their captor’s face before he could stop himself, and the easy, _predatory_ smile he saw there immediately made Caleb stare down at his feet instead, as if he were a child hiding under a blanket from a monster beneath the bed.

“Do you, now,” the monster murmured. He reached out to brush a few stray strands of hair back behind Caleb’s ear with cold fingers, and then he let those fingers trail across Caleb’s cheek and down along his throat. “That makes things easier, then. I really do hate to ask, Caleb, but…” He sighed, sounding tired and resigned and yes, maybe just a touch embarrassed. “It’s been such a long night, and this was all so much harder than I thought it was going to be. And I really did try not to take too much from your friends, but I’m still just a _little_ hungry, so perhaps you might indulge me?”

“I mean, we figured it was only fair,” Beau added, as she came to lean against the wall next to Caleb. He could only see her out of the corner of his eye, however, because the thought of lifting his head and even accidentally meeting Maxwell’s eyes again was suddenly the most daunting thought in the world. “Since he’s letting us stay here.”

“Of course,” Caleb whispered, as he hastily put the pieces together and felt dizzy with dread at the picture they painted.

Beau and Fjord had willingly allowed themselves to be bitten. It was probably a side-effect of the enchantment they were under.

Which meant that Caleb would need to willingly allow himself to be bitten, too. He could play off everything else that had happened so far as exhaustion and curiosity and nerves but he knew that if he dug in his heels now, the entire game was up and any hope he had of getting them all out of here would go up in smoke.

Once that cold certainty was fixed in his mind, once he properly realized that he had only one option here and now, it was perversely easier to make himself move, to meet Maxwell’s eyes as he did so like he was a man with nothing to hide. Caleb reached up with one hand to untie his scarf from around his neck, tug his coat a little lower down his shoulders and get the hem of his shirt out of the way.

With his other hand, he went fumbling for…someone. Anyone. He recognize Fjord’s hand when it took hold of his, when the half-orc gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze. Even now, that somehow made him feel just a little bit better.

“It really only hurts for a sec,” he heard Fjord saying, as Maxwell ever so gently guided Caleb to tilt his head and bare his throat. “And not even all that much.”

He was wrong.

After all was said and done, the three of them were shown to one of the empty servant’s quarters Caleb had found earlier. There were a lot of empty beds. They picked three of them and settled in for the night. At least neither of his friends gave Caleb any grief for taking the bed furthest from the door.

Beau kept trying to get him to stop touching the wounds in his neck, but finally pulled some bandages and a spare healer’s kit out of her own pack and settled down to tend to him. The bandage, when she was done applying it, itched fiercely. But Caleb could appreciate that an itch was better than the dull, throbbing ache that had settled into his neck before her help. It could even be a good sign, a sign of healing.

And then there was really nothing much to do but sleep. Beau and Fjord were clearly exhausted, and so was Caleb no matter how much he was loathe to admit it to them or to himself. The beds were ancient, the sheets were musty, but they’d all slept in worse.

He didn’t expect his dreams to be pleasant, but one small mercy of the entire night was that in the end he was too worn out to dream at all.


	3. The Harsh Light of Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caleb and his friends have a talk with Maxwell about the night before, and get assigned some chores in turn.

Caleb slept heavy and late. When he finally started to slowly drag himself back to the land of the waking, reality returned to him in flashes and snapshots of sensation. He felt Nott’s reassuringly familiar weight draped across his legs, he felt sunlight on his face, he smelled dust and disuse in the air.  

Over the sounds of Nott snoring, he could hear Beau and Fjord talking in low voices on the other side of the room, obviously trying not to disturb them. He tried to remember why they were all sharing one room at this inn, thought to himself that Molly and Jester were probably already downstairs and seeing to breakfast.

It was odd for Frumpkin to not be here. That was the first thing that struck him as wrong. That was what finally got Caleb to open his eyes and start to sit up, for the sake of looking around the room and seeing where his cat was hiding.

Then he saw where they were, and it all came rushing back.

Beau and Fjord looked over at him as Caleb clapped a hand over the bandage on his neck. “Mornin’,” she said. “It’s probably healed by now. See?” She tilted her head to let Caleb see her throat and, sure enough, the ragged holes there had healed over quickly in the night.

“You sleep okay?” Fjord asked.

“F-Fine,” Caleb stammered. “Yes.” He couldn’t bring himself to peel back the dressing and check the state of his own injury.

He stared down at Nott, instead, and it hit him then that he had never been so disappointed to see her. Nott always found her way back to him in the end, even when it would have been so much better for both of them if she’d just stayed lost.

“So,” he said, and his voice sounded strange and far away to his ears. “What is on the proverbial agenda for today?”

“Maxwell said to meet him in his room when we were all ready,” Fjord said. “Said he’s got some things he’d like our help with.”

“Oh?” Caleb tried not to think too hard about what those things might be. “Um, good, right, yes. Perhaps we can even ask him about Mollymauk today, before we are all sent about our business.”

He knew it was a risk to mention Molly to them as they were now. Caleb mostly wanted to gauge their reactions, get a better sense for where they thought their heads were at. But somehow, the reaction to his question was worse than he could possibly have anticipated.

Beau and Fjord exchanged a _look_ , and even Caleb could see that they looked so grim and sad all of a sudden. His heart skipped a beat, his throat felt tight with dread. “What?” he asked them, not entirely sure he wanted an answer.

Beau _sighed_ , long and tired, running a hand through her hair. “Listen, Caleb…” she began.

“ _Beau_ ,” Fjord said, and his tone was a warning edged with a growl. Caleb had never heard him sound like that, and it was almost scarier than remembering that they were in a house full of zombies. “We are not havin’ this conversation right now.”

“Then when the fuck are we having it?” Beau snapped back.

“ _Never_ , would be my preference. It’s done. Nothing more any of us can do about it.”

“What are you both talking about?” Caleb asked, feeling like the bottom had just dropped out of the world all over again. What had he missed while he’d been asleep?

But their raised voices and his movement proved to be enough to wake Nott up. He heard her stir, mumbling sleepily, until she lifted her head, rubbing at her eyes.

“Good morning,” she mumbled.

“Good morning,” Caleb said, looking down at her and smiling wanly, grateful for the distraction. And for a moment his heart felt a little more at ease because it couldn’t not where Nott was involved.

Then he saw what he had missed before, with most of her hair covering her face. Now that she was sitting up and yawning hugely, he could see that a lot of the bandages around her head and neck had been unwound at some point last night, and there were two half-healed holes in her throat.

“Caleb, be careful!” Nott squawked, and suddenly she was pulling him off the bed and Caleb looked down blankly to see that he’d left two smoldering handprints in the sheets. She immediately set to work checking his hands, unwrapping his scorched bandages enough to wince at the freshly blackened skin.

“Sorry,” he said dully. He wasn’t. He didn’t hurt, either, but mostly because he’d stopped being able to feel much of anything on the palms of his hands a long time ago.

“Did you have bad dreams?” she asked, peering up at him anxiously. “I know…I know last night must have been very hard for you, Caleb, but it’s over now.”

 _That is what I am afraid of_.

“I slept just fine,” he said, and it wasn’t even entirely a lie. He’d slept well under the circumstances. “But thank you, Nott.” He reached down to ruffle her hair before she pulled her hood up. “How, ah, how are you feeling?”

“Fine and dandy! But we should probably get going. We can see Maxwell and then find some breakfast.”

Almost on cue, Caleb’s stomach growled. Fjord chuckled tiredly as he and Beau came to join the two of them, looking a little less tense than he had a moment ago. “Sounds good to me. Shall we?”

They did, all filing out of the room they’d been given and heading upstairs. Caleb gave himself a mental pat on the back, because the third floor proved to be, if not where Maxwell slept, then where he held his court. The four of them gathered in a clean and well appointed study where the vampire was waiting for them, sprawled languidly in an armchair.

“Ah, good,” Maxwell said, as they all stood in a line before him. Nott had taken Caleb’s hand without him having to reach for it, and he was grateful for that even now. “Thank you all for coming. I hope you didn’t wake too early on my account.”

“Shit, this is the latest I’ve slept in a while,” Beau said. “Thanks for letting us nap.”

“But you said you had some tasks for us today, and we’d like to get to them,” Fjord added.

“M-Maybe after some breakfast?” Nott ventured, darting a glance up at Caleb. “Or lunch. Whichever. We aren’t picky.”

“Mm, yes.” Maxwell frowned, then heaved a put-upon sigh. “That was actually one of the matters I wished to discuss with you all. You see, when I approached Lucien, I didn’t entirely expect to end the night bringing so many guests home. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, you four are the only ones here with…those sorts of needs.”

He licked his lips, then. Caleb felt his heart stutter in his chest and wondered if any of the others had noticed or cared.

“So to arrange a proper meal today, and provide for you all in future, I’m afraid a trip to town will be required,” Maxwell carried on. “Beauregard, Fjord, I was wondering if you could see to that? I think you’ll find I have a very good line of credit with the people of Tanner’s Crossing. They should supply you with everything they need. If they prove themselves greedy, well…I’m sure you can handle matters.”

“We’re pretty good at handling matters,” Beau agreed without hesitation.

“Looked like a nice day outside,” Fjord added. “A ride down the hill sounds pretty nice.”

“I thought you might agree,” Maxwell agreed with a bright smile. “Thank you both for understanding. Now, Nott, you told me last night that you dabble in chemistry.”

“I do a little more than dabble,” Nott answered proudly. “I make the best acid you’ll ever drink.”

The monster laughed lightly, pressing a hand to his mouth. “Good. Wonderful to hear. I’d like you to brew some things for me today. I can provide you all the ingredients you might require.”

“Then I’m your goblin!”

“As for you, Caleb,” Maxwell finished, turning his head to regard Caleb with that same detached, bored air that Caleb remembered from just before he’d been bitten in the throat. “Nott tells me that you are an exceptionally intelligent human, even for a wizard. I had a particularly difficult piece of text that I need translated, and I would appreciate a fresh pair of eyes.”

“I have done that sort of work in the past,” Caleb answered cautiously. “If you let me take a look I am sure I can tell you something.”

“Wonderful!” Maxwell suddenly sat up straight and clapped his hands and Caleb fought not to flinch. “Thank you all again for being so helpful to me. Beau, Fjord, you both can go and retrieve the cart. Caleb, let me show you to the library and then Nott, I can show you to your lab.”

“Wait a moment,” Caleb heard himself say, as the vampire got up and they all started to move towards the doors. Maxwell looked right at him, already having moved right within arm’s reach, and for a moment blind panic meant that Caleb forgot why he’d said anything at all. “Please,” he added, just to give himself an extra second, and then his wits caught up with him.

“Before we all go about our business,” he stammered, clinging so tightly to Nott’s hand that he was dimly amazed she didn’t wince. “I wanted to ask you…is Mollymauk here? May we see him?”

Caleb _felt_ the stares his friends were exchanging around his back and over his head, even as he trembled beneath the monster’s gaze like a rabbit before the hound. He hoped his inability to look away might be interpreted as honesty or guilelessness.

His stomach lurched with dread when Maxwell didn’t so much as twitch, when instead he sighed and rested a hand against his cheek as though it pained him. “Oh, Caleb,” he said, pity ringing in his voice. He reached out to fuss with Caleb’s hair again, brushing his bangs back from his forehead the way a parent might for a frightened child. Caleb had to fight so hard not to flinch that it hurt. He still felt shivers of revulsion take hold of his stomach. “I knew this might happen. Last night was such a bad business, and shock can do terrible things to the mind. You really shouldn’t worry about Lucien anymore, Caleb. You did what you thought was best.”

Fjord cleared his throat and stepped a little into Caleb’s view, and Caleb had never been so grateful to suddenly be able to look away from someone. “Caleb,” his friend said softly. “Last night, when Maxwell started asking Molly about his past, he…didn’t take it well. I’d never seen him like that. We tried to stop him, _you_ tried to stop him, but…he decided he was done with talking.” Caleb was horrified to see that there were tears in Fjord’s eyes. Fjord actually pressed a hand over his mouth, like he was trying not to sob, like it hurt to breathe, and Beau squeezed her friend’s shoulder and stepped in to finish.

“Jester got between them,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if Molly tried to stop himself. I don’t care, honestly. You saw what was coming faster than any of us and lit him up, but…”

“…it was still too late,” Nott finished, as somber as he’d ever heard her. She spoke gently, obviously trying to soften the blow for him, but there could be no easing this wound.

His ears were ringing. The world was spinning. What they were saying could not be true, it could not it could not it could _not_. Yet the way they took up the story for one another was so familiar, so very _them_ , and none of them missed a beat in the telling of it. He looked from face to face and saw nothing but genuine grief and remorse for what had happened last night.

“Jester…Jester is dead?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw and suddenly he was having to fight not to cry in turn. “Molly is dead? I…”

It wasn’t true, it _was not true_. His mind hastily replayed the events of the evening in his head. The moment when Maxwell had stopped the cart to talk to Fjord, when he’d asked Beau to stay outside, sometime after Nott had gotten there, he had woven some fresh hell of an enchantment and given his friends new memories of horrible things. This was not true but they _believed_ it to be true and so he could not help but he shaken at the sight of them.

And could he really say for certain that it wasn’t true? If he accepted the idea that Maxwell Virago might have magic that could modify memories, who was to say that _he_ hadn’t been the target of that magic, rather than his friends? What if the vampire had just made Caleb _think_ that Mollymauk was only imprisoned, that he’d managed to get Jester somewhere safe, when instead two more of his most important people lay charred and dead by his hand and his remaining friends had to dance around the subject for fear of driving him even more mad?

It had happened once. It could happen again. He hadn’t noticed the first time, after all, not until she’d cleared the clouds from his mind and she was not here anymore and so he knew, _he knew_ that if this monster had wanted Caleb to think Molly and Jester were alive when they were in fact dead because of him then he could have done so.

Fjord hugged him, clearly having seen Caleb’s thoughts spinning themselves in dizzy circles even if he couldn’t possibly have guessed what those thoughts were. “Try to go easy on yourself,” Fjord said gruffly. “You tried to save her. You…you came closer than any of us. That’s not nothing, Caleb, and I won’t forget it.”

Caleb clung back to Fjord, burying his face in his friend’s shoulder and trying just to breathe as felt himself going numb and going away inside his head. “Thank you,” he heard himself whisper. There seemed to be nothing else to say. He wondered what Beau and Nott thought about all of this, but they weren’t saying anything, and maybe that was best. Nott just hugged him, too. They all must have been hurting, no need to waste any more words on him.

Even so, when he realized dimly that everyone was starting to move away and move towards going about their assigned business, Caleb couldn’t bring himself to move and follow. He wanted to, he knew he _should_ , but everything still felt distant and unreal, including his own body. He wouldn’t have known how to start moving if he’d known to want to. So he just kept standing where they left him, even as he was dimly aware of voices speaking to him.

Nott eventually had to lead him by the hand. After a moment, she started humming to him and he subconsciously picked up the tune. That helped him come back to himself just a little bit more, just enough to function. Sometimes that was the best he could hope for. They both knew that.

Maxwell led them out into the hallway. Fjord and Beau headed towards the stairs, Caleb and Nott followed the vampire three doors down, where Maxwell threw open the doors to reveal a spacious library.

For a blessed moment, Caleb forgot where he was and why he was there. There were so very many books, stacked on so many shelves that lined the wall and stretched floor to ceiling. He stared around at them all, mouth agape and unable to bring himself to care. And he hadn't even had to sign in.

Nott brought him back to reality by squeezing his hand. “See?” she asked, sounding so happy on his behalf. “I told you this would be good for us!”

“You did,” Caleb said softly. “I see.” And he was impressed, despite himself. He didn’t know where he’d even begin picking out titles to steal.

Maxwell showed him to a desk by an enormous window, though it was drawn with heavy curtains there and then. “I’ve laid out everything I have for you,” he said, gesturing grandly at the chaotic mess of papers strewn across it. There were multiple inkwells and a small bundle of quills waiting for him, blank paper to work with and paper covered with unfamiliar symbols in unfamiliar handwriting.

“And you need this translated?” Caleb asked, squinting down at one of the pages. “I’m assuming then that this is beyond a comprehend languages spell?”

“Why don’t you cast one and see for yourself?” the vampire asked, sounding smug. Caleb frowned, but rummaged around in his pocket, drew out a pinch of soot and then a pinch of salt, and did as he was bidden.

The magic flared to life within him, sharpening his eyes and opening his mind. The letters on the pages spread before him blurred and squirmed as he brushed his fingers over them, and he could see them shifting but…it didn’t make the words themselves any more comprehensible.

“Hm,” Caleb murmured, picking up a piece of paper and holding it right up to his face. “That’s…this is some sort of code. Some sort of…code written in three languages? Oh dear.” As he scanned the page, that was the closest thing to a pattern he could determine. Some of the symbols were familiar, some weren’t. “Oh dear, oh dear. Celestial, Infernal, and…Gnomeish?” He could read Celestial, he could decipher a smattering of Infernal. Caleb could count the number of times he’d been called upon to read Gnomeish on one hand.

“That’s about what I was able to determine as well,” Maxwell said from behind him. “Lucien could be rather _fiendishly_ clever with his secrets. But Nott tells me that you are quite intelligent yourself. I’m certain you can crack his code, and I would be truly, eternally grateful for it.”

“I can solve this,” Caleb murmured, and his voice was steady because he _knew_ that he could, if given enough time. And maybe that could give him an edge, maybe that could give him some leverage.

“Then we’ll leave you to it,” said Maxwell, sounding pleased. “Come along, Nott. Let me show you to your lab.’

“Wait,” Caleb said, without looking up, as he heard them start to walk away. He heard them stop, felt their gazes on the back of his neck. “Not you, Nott. Please wait outside. I need to speak to our friend for a moment.”

“Are you sure?” Nott asked, and he could practically hear her wringing her hands. “If It’s something bad, maybe I can help.”

He was able to force himself to look round, then, and smile as reassuringly as he could for her. “Nothing bad, I promise you. Something a little embarrassing, actually. I just don’t want you to laugh at me, Nott.”

“I would never!” She looked genuinely affronted.

“Please wait outside, Nott,” said the vampire, staring fixedly at Caleb. “If Caleb only feels comfortable speaking to me, we shouldn’t deprive him of that.”

He could _see_ her ears droop, he could see the hurt on her face beneath her hood, and Caleb wanted nothing more than to tell her that this monster was wrong, there was no one else he was more comfortable around but also no one he wanted more fiercely to keep _safe_ and that was what mattered now.

He bit his tongue until it nearly bled, instead. “All right,” Nott mumbled sadly, and then she turned and shuffled towards the library door, closing it behind her. He wondered if she would be eavesdropping. He wondered if Maxwell’s magic could extend even that far.

He looked at the monster and the monster looked at him and something in Caleb, something cold and calm that had fallen so deep into fear that it had come out the other side, said _to hell with it._

“I do not want you biting her,” he said, folding his hands behind his back in case they started smoking at the memory.

Maxwell tilted his head and otherwise his expression did not flicker an inch. “Why, Caleb,” he murmured, and he might have been offended or amused. “I promise you, I didn’t hurt her. I only took as much as I needed. She’ll be fine after another night’s rest. I wouldn’t have taken anything from her at all, you understand, only…well, after controlling myself so strictly with you three, I confess I was still just a little bit _peckish_ when she made her way back last night.” He visibly swallowed, as if he were drooling at the memory.

“I don’t care,” said Caleb, and he was dancing so close to the edge right now, but this was _Nott_ and so he didn’t care. He never had. He’d decided long ago that he would burn the world down for his little friend. The least he could do was bleed for her. “If you are hungry and have taken your fill from Beauregard or Fjord, come to me. Not her.”

“Are you certain?” Maxwell asked softly, swaying just a few steps closer. “I was very careful last night, to take little enough that you could sleep it off. Any more and you might start to feel it.”

“I am very tall. She is very little. She needs her blood a great deal more than I do. She has less of it. It needs to stay _where it is_.” He would not be intimidated, not now, not in this. He always felt like a different person during moments like this – a stronger, _better_ person, and he would cling to that now. “Besides, if what you are saying is true, I am going to be sitting on my arse reading books all day. I don’t need to be strong for that.”

Maxwell laughed quietly, and yes, he was _definitely_ amused, and Caleb didn’t know all of a sudden if that was a good thing or a bad. “I wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, but yes,” the vampire purred, reaching out to run his fingers down Caleb’s cheek. Caleb clenched his jaw until it hurt and clenched his fists behind his back and managed one more time not to flinch. “Very well, Caleb. Far be it from me to gainsay you when you seem so determined. And it’s admirable, really, how much you care for her. So very sweet.”

Before Caleb could think to stop him, before he could even properly appreciate it was happening, Maxwell leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. His lips were cold, and left coldness in their wake, and Caleb thought he might have whimpered.

If Maxwell noticed, he did not say. Caleb had a sinking feeling that Maxwell _had_ noticed, and had enjoyed it. The vampire pulled away and smiled at him, big and bright enough to show his teeth. “Good luck today,” he said. “Someone will come and find you when your friends return with the supplies.”

“Thank you,” Caleb said, and it felt like the weight of the world was on his head, trying to press his gaze down.

He was proud of himself for keeping it up, for keeping his eyes on the vampire as Maxwell Virago turned and left him there in the library, closing and locking the door behind him.

Only then did Caleb Widogast collapse back heavily into the chair that had been left for him, hands over his face, shaking like a leaf and trying desperately not to hyperventilate as the adrenaline drained away and left only fear in its wake.

He did eventually get to work, curiosity helping to temper that fear. Caleb spread out the ciphered pages on one side of the desk, dipped a quill in ink, and started to take notes. It was difficult work from the start, and he quickly found himself engaged despite himself, but not so much so that he missed it when a voice spoke right by his ear.

 _“Caleb?”_ Jester whispered.


	4. Message Received

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb and Jester have a talk, then Caleb studies some magic.

Jester had been forced to go far enough out of her way for the sake of avoiding Nott that the sun had properly risen by the time she and Frumpkin finally saw Tanner’s Crossing in the distance. She was more tired than she could remember being in a long while, and caught herself hoping desperately that they had an inn.

“Focus,” she told herself sternly, slapping herself lightly in the face. “No time for sleep.”

Frumpkin seemed to agree. The cat continued to trot on ahead of her, tail held high, apparently still undaunted despite the distance he’d led Jester so far. _Find me a Caleb_ , she’d told him, and he was still obviously determined to obey.

Still, the most direct version of that path apparently involved cutting their way through the little town. Jester could see people going about their business, but not many, and no one was lingering. No one even seemed to notice her until she was crossing the main road, but once someone did, it felt like all eyes were on her.

Jester laughed nervously and waved at all and sundry. “Hello!” she chirped, her voice sounding a little too bright even to her ears. “Don’t mind me, everybody, just following this kitty cat.”

“This isn’t a place you want to linger, stranger,” said a woman who was apparently bringing in some laundry.

“I can see that!” Jester answered, feeling some of her tension ease now that someone _was_ talking. “Definitely not planning on it. Just need to find my friends.”

“I take it they’re not from around here, either?”

“Nope! Not even a little bit.”

The woman was looking antsy just standing here talking to her, so when she started to move away Jester followed her instead. “They’re a pretty crazy bunch, you can’t miss ‘em. There’s a stinky wizard, and a little go --  I mean halfling girl, and a really handsome green guy, and a girl who looks like she wants to punch everything, and…” _And a purple tiefling_ , she almost said, before she caught herself. “…and me,” Jester finished awkwardly instead. “Usually. Have you seen anybody like that?”

“Forget them,” said the woman flatly. “Count your own blessings.”

“What?! No!” Jester was horrified at the very idea. “Fuck that! You are talking like you know something and I want to know it!” She raced around to try and block the woman’s path now, throwing her arms out wide. “Tell me!”

The woman bumped Jester with her laundry basket, seemingly casual but surprisingly forceful. Jester stumbled back with a wince, and watched helplessly as the woman almost carried on…but then she stopped, apparently taking pity, and glanced back.

“Strangers get brought through here sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes they come down here to make trouble. Never for too long. Probably not even their choice.” She jerked her chin towards the grassy hill that overlooked the town, and a house that Jester could see atop it. “The bloodsucker brings them. Don’t know what he does with ‘em after that.”

“Bloodsucker?” Jester murmured thoughtfully, staring up at it. That certainly looked like a fancy sort of place where a wizard might live. It was certainly big enough to keep her friends inside. “Okay well, thank you. I am going to go up there and ask about my friends.”

“Your funeral,” the woman grumbled, turning away again. Jester stuck her tongue out at the human’s retreating back, then motioned for Frumpkin to carry on. The cat had been sitting and watching Jester patiently, but when he was bidden, Frumpkin turned and carried on, up the hill and towards the mansion with Jester hot on his paws.

She was so engrossed in the path before her that Jester didn’t hear the sounds of a cart rattling down the road until Frumpkin let out a soft yowl and darted behind a bush. Jester followed without thinking, pressing herself into the shadows before risking a glance back at the path.

Then her eyes went wide because there _was_ a cart. That was _their_ cart and two of _her_ friends sitting on it, chatting amiably back and forth as the horse led them on back towards the village she’d just left. Jester was torn for a moment, because Beau and Fjord looked so _normal_ and maybe they’d been able to save themselves and everything was okay now.

Except she couldn’t see Caleb or Nott or Molly, and once the cart was a fair distance away Frumpkin pawed at her leg to get her attention. So he agreed, then – Caleb was still in that house, and they still had to find him. Jester nodded down at the cat and together they hurried onward.

She didn’t need the familiar’s warning to let her know to stay out of sight, after that. She couldn’t make herself invisible like Caleb and Nott and Fjord sometimes could, but Jester could be quick when she had to, darting from bush to tree to stable and making a slow perimeter around the grand old house, seeing what there was to see. It was three stories, and kind of old and shabby now that she saw it up close. Someone had tried to see to the groundskeeping and had done a very bad job of it. The stables weren’t far from the front door and could fit two horses. Most of the windows were curtained heavily and some were bricked up entirely.

There was one that was open, however – a big, bay window on the third floor that, when she peered over the top of the bush she hid behind, let Jester see into a grand library within. There was a table set up by the window, and a shadow bent over some work.

Frumpkin let out a long, piteous meow, staring with obvious longing at the figure. Jester reached down to pet his head and smiled in relief. Of all the terrible possibilities she hadn’t been able to stop her mind from conjuring up, this hadn’t been one of them, and she was so glad of that.

She drew a scrap of gleaming wire from her pocket and carefully twisted and tangled it in the very same patterns Nott had tried to teach her not too long ago before bringing it to her lips.

“Caleb?”

She saw the shadow in the window twitch violently, and saw something get knocked over. Jester stifled a giggle, hastily ducked back down behind the bush, and twirled the wire again. “Sorry. Were you busy with something?” Then, remembering just where she was and what they were doing, she added: “You’re not mind controlled now, are you?”

 _“Jester_. _”_ Caleb sounded so relieved that it made her chest hurt. _“You’re…you’re alive.”_

“Of course I am, silly! But seriously, tell me if you’re kissing that Max guy’s butt right now.”

 _“Maxwell Virago is the biggest_ arschloch _it has ever been my misfortune to be imprisoned by. And that includes the Crownsguard.“_

Jester made sure he could hear her sigh of relief. “I‘m really, really glad, Caleb. I‘ve been really worried about you.”

_“How are you talking to me? Where did you learn this spell?”_

“Nott tried to teach it to me a while ago, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it! So last time we were in Zadash, I asked Pumat Sol if he could make me a special wire that let me talk like you guys do. I was going to surprise you with it. Oh! I guess I just did!”

 _“Very much so. A very good surprise, though.”_ He sounded like he meant it, and Jester smiled happily to herself. _“Is Frumpkin there with you?”_

Frumpkin was currently sitting in her lap, his eyes following the wire as it danced through Jester’s fingers. As she glanced down at the cat, she saw his eyes flash to pure blue as Caleb spoke again. _“Yes, I see him. Thank you for keeping my cat alive.”_

“Of course! He’s been a very good kitty.” She reached out to scratch Frumpkin’s chin. He leaned into the touch, purring, and through the spell she heard Caleb make a funny noise before the cat’s eyes quickly returned to normal.

Well that was good to know.

“Caleb,” Jester cooed, drawing out the sound of his name with relish. “Can you feel it when I scratch Frumpkin’s chin or his ears?”

_“N-No.”_

“Does it feel nice?”

He sighed, and she fist-pumped. _“Can we please discuss the vampire situation right now?”_

“Okay. What is a vampire?”

_“O-Oh, um. Right. They probably don’t really have them in the Menagerie Coast. Too sunny.”_

“But they have them in Zemni?”

_“Perhaps. Or at least, they are very frequent subjects of cautionary tales for children. ‘Do not stay out after dark or the vampires will get you’, or ‘don’t go wandering the woods or the vampires will get you.’”_

Jester caught herself holding her breath. “Did they?” she asked in a breathless whisper.

_“I never stayed out after dark or went wandering the woods, so I could not say.”_

“Boring,” Jester said. “But probably smart, if they were anything like this guy. So, what is a vampire?”

_“Undead, but not like zombies. Much smarter. Much more human. Except, um, to keep themselves going, they apparently need to drink...well, blood.”_

Jester gasped, so shocked that she nearly fumbled her grip on the wire and it took her two attempts to successfully cast the spell again. “ _Blood_?” she demanded. “Caleb, is this guy drinking your blood?!”

There was no reply. Jester peered over the bush, squinting towards the window again, to see if he was ignoring her. Then, gritting her teeth, she messaged him again. “Caleb...”

_“It’s fine. I am fine. It wasn’t much. I feel better after having slept.”_

“He still drank your blood!” Jester’s wits caught up with her through the horror, and she felt both a little sick and more than a little willing to hit something. “What about the others? Nott and Beau and, and Fjord? And Molly? Is he drinking their blood, too?”

 _“I don’t know about Mollymauk. I...still have not found him here. I only know that he_ is _here, somewhere.”_

“But you know about everyone else?”

Again, no reply. Jester would not be deterred. “He is _drinking your blood,_ Caleb. Yours’ and everybody else’s! What are we going to do? How do you kill a vampire?”

 _“I...”_ She heard him sigh. _“I don’t know. I am sorry.”_

“None of those stories talked about how to kill these things?”

 _“Stories of childhood monsters are not really as effective if the stories also tell you how to kill the thing.”_ She heard him grumbling to himself before he had to recast the spell. _“The only thing I remember is that driving a wooden stake through their mouths was supposed to be very effective.”_

“But that sounds like it would hurt anything!”

 _“I know. Hence why it seems like we are basically at square one.”_ He sounded as frustrated as she felt. Jester desperately cast her mind about for a solution.

“Well, you said he’s undead, right? I’m pretty good against those guys.”

_“That Is, um, a good place to start. But Jester, we might very well be fighting this monster alone. I want to see if we can find a little more to go on, first.”_

“Well, I can see you from here, and _you’re_ inside a big library. How do you want me to find stuff out?”

_“I’ve thought about this and…the town down the hill, maybe. Tanner’s Crossing, did he call it? If they have lived in the thrall of a vampire for a while, they must know something to still be alive and in full possession of themselves. You can find things out from them, and I can compare it to anything I might find here, and from there, maybe we can make a plan.”_

He sounded hopeful, and Jester wanted to believe in that, but too much had gone wrong too quickly and she didn’t want to let the only friend she had who was still in his right mind talk himself into a bad idea.

“That sounds like it could take a while,” she said, remembering the woman she’d spoken to before, remembering how reluctant anyone had been to come near her at all. “Like, a few days at least. Days where you all will still be in there getting _bitten_.”

 _“Honestly, it’s, um, it’s not the biting I am worried about, Jester. It’s the hypnotism he seems to have the others under. Nevermind the fact that he could talk them into doing_ anything _as they are now…it will wear off. Every spell I have studied that produces this effect wears off in time. That’s, that’s just how magic and minds work. But that means he is also probably going to try to reapply it, Jester. To them. To…”_ She heard him give a shaky sigh, and she could just imagine him hunching in on himself, trying to make himself small enough to disappear the way Caleb always did when he was really scared. _“To me. And without the dodecahedron, I don’t know if I can hold him back a second time.”_

Jester felt her heart stutter with dread at the picture he was painting. “So I should come in there to get you,” she said flatly. “Right now. Or you should come out to me. Use that spell you used to send me away. Or just open the fucking window, Caleb!” She punched the ground in frustration, and her agitation was so great that Frumpkin hopped off her lap.

 _“If I do that…”_ He was tempted, she could tell, but this was _Caleb_ she was talking to and so of course he talked himself out of a good thing. _“I’m afraid he might hurt the others. To punish them, or, or punish_ me _. He seems that sort of man. And if I leave, there will be no one left in any fit state to find Mollymauk.”_

“How do you _know_ he’s even in there?”

 _“Virago wanted something from him. Something he wanted badly enough to go through all of this. I think he would keep Mollymauk close, to keep trying to get whatever that is.”_ She heard the sound of a quill tapping against paper through the spell. _“That is what he has me working on now, actually. A backup, or a failsafe. If I can translate whatever this is, whatever ‘Lucien’ promised Virago, that might give us some leverage.”_

And there it was. She could tell he’d talked himself right into it…and the worst part was that Jester couldn’t find any holes in his logic that might let her talk him back out of it. He made sense. That was the worst part.

“So what you really need is a spell from me that will let you not get whammied.”

 _“That would be very helpful, yes_.”

“You are very, _very_ lucky, Caleb. Because I actually do have a spell like that! And I will teach it to you instead of just busting open the window and throwing you over my shoulder.”

She caught the sound of him laughing, though he was obviously trying to hide it from her. _“Thank you, Jester_. _”_

“Only one problem,” she said, as she pulled off the haversack and went rummaging around in it up to her shoulder. “It takes either holy water or powdered silver and iron. I have two flasks of holy water! I can make more later. But that will be _later_. Two flasks will give you enough for two days.”

_“Good.”_

“ _And_ the spell is only good for ten minutes.”

_“…not as good. But a lot can happen in ten minutes. I suppose I just need to be careful with my timing.”_

“Good thing you’ve got a freakish sense of time.”

 _“I’ve always thought so.”_ He sounded pleased with himself. She supposed this was as good a reason as any to be pleased. _“Can you bring the holy water over here without being seen?”_

“Probably not.” Jester pulled the vials from her bag and held them out to Frumpkin, and directed her words to him instead. “Here you go, kitty! Go take these over to Caleb.”

Frumpkin meowed in what sounded like agreement and opened his mouth. Jester only hesitated for a moment before placing the vials carefully in his jaws, but fortunately Frumpkin was equally careful in closing his mouth around them. And with that, the cat darted out from behind the bush and up towards the mansion. Jester risked peeking out of her hiding spot to watch him go.

Caleb was on the third floor, Frumpkin was on the ground. Frumpkin managed to bridge some of the gap by hopping up to a fist floor windowsill, and then to a second. Caleb's window didn't have a sill, however, and Frumpkin couldn't quite reach high enough to paw at it. 

Fortunately, Caleb seemed to know he was there anyway. Jester saw the window open, saw Caleb lean out and carefully gather up the cat into his arms and it was suddenly really hard to keep her promise to not just go over there and rescue him _right now_ because he really did look so tired. Jester forced herself to think of their other friends, however, the ones that all of this was for, and settled back down to wait.

A few minutes later, Frumpkin came trotting back up to her with a bright, attentive chirp and settled into her lap again. Caleb’s voice wasn’t far behind.

_“Thank you, Jester.”_

“You are welcome.”

_“For the holy water and, um, f-for letting me stick my face in my cat for a few minutes.”_

“Did it help?”

_“Yes, very much.”_

“You looked like you needed it.” And he already sounded leagues better. Jester scritched Frumpkin’s back so he could be extra sure he was a good boy. “Okay, so. Here is how the spell works…”

It didn’t take her long to teach him. Caleb was a quick study, and Jester was pretty sure it only took them about an hour before she was sure he’d gotten it. Most of that hour was taken up by him asking exasperatingly detailed and specific questions anyway.

In the end, he had one final point of concern. _“Jester, this seems like the sort of spell that relies heavily on, um, gods. I have never been a godly sort of man.”_

“The Traveler is with you, always,” Jester pronounced solemnly. “You are a friend of mine and so you are a friend of his!”

 _“…that is good to know.”_ He still sounded skeptical, but she had no doubt he’d quickly find his faith when the Traveler’s magic protected him.

And then just like that, Jester realized that…she had no further reason to stay, if she wasn’t going to be rescuing anyone yet. Caleb had made his thoughts and his plans clear and, damn it all to hell, she couldn’t find any sufficient fault with them.

Which meant that the only thing left for her to do now was leave him.

“Caleb…” Jester began, hating herself for what she was about to say.

Caleb spared her from saying it. She wasn’t sure if she loved him for it or just hated him instead. _“You should go. Before you are seen.”_

“Y-Yeah.” Tanner’s Crossing looked like it was big enough to have an inn somewhere, and she had all the money. “But, but I will be back tomorrow! To tell you all the good stuff I learned about vampires. So you’d better be back here to meet me, okay?”

_“I will be, Jester. Until tomorrow. Please, um…take care.”_

“You, too.”

The spell ended, and she did not repeat it. Her fingers were aching from manipulating the wire for so long, and Jester tucked it carefully back into her pocket. Then she looked at Frumpkin, and Frumpkin looked back up at her and squeaked sadly.

“I know,” she said, patting his head. “Me, too.”

Deciding to give her new friend a break, she picked Frumpkin up and settled him in her arms. She could find the way back to town on her own. And so Jester got to her feet, dusted herself off, and hastened back down the hill.

*  *  *

And so Caleb was left alone with the silence for a little while, with nothing but his own anxious thoughts and bad memories for company and the prospect of a difficult task ahead of him.

He almost knocked over another inkwell when a knock sounded at the door. “C-Come in!” he called hastily, trying to put his workstation back to rights.

The door opened and Nott poked her head inside. “Caleb? Are you busy?”

“Just taking a rest for a moment,” he said, smiling at her, checking for more bite marks as he did so. She’d rewrapped her bandages since the morning, so she was...probably okay. Or so he hoped.

“Good!” Nott answered happily, coming fully inside, shutting the door behind her, and moving to join him at his desk. “Me, too. So I found us some lunch!”

She held out both fists, which were clenched around several strips of what he had to squint to identify as jerky of some sort. It was old enough to have gone a bit grey, but didn’t seem to be visibly molded.

He remembered then that he hadn’t eaten anything since last night. His stomach rumbled to punctuate the reminder. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to work while hungry, but Caleb realized ruefully that he wasn’t as used to it as he’d once been. The Mighty Nein had spoiled them both. “Thank you, Nott,” he said, and took the share she offered him.

“I boiled it in some acid!” Nott declared proudly. “To soften it up for you. Oh, but the really mild stuff,” she added hastily, when Caleb hesitated. “Just enough to give it some flavor back!”

He considered the meat for a moment, then shrugged and tore a strip off with his teeth. True to her word, the jerky was a lot more tender than it looked. The acid hadn’t done much for the flavor, but maybe that was for the best. Nott hopped up onto the desk beside him and set to work devouring her share of the meat.

“Where did you find this?” he asked her, mouth full.

“In the cellar. I’m not surprised Max didn’t remember it was there. It was in like this one little half-full sack at the very back.”

“Any skeletons down there?” He wished it was a question he could joke about.

“Yes, but they were up and walking and wearing uniforms. So I think they’re all right.”

Caleb tried to suppress a shudder. Nott frowned and patted him on the shoulder in an apparent attempt at reassurance. “They don’t smell as bad as the zombies,” she said sympathetically. “But the zombies do smell _really_ bad.”

“Does it bother you at all? That we are living in a house full of dead things?”

She contemplated the question, before shrugging. “Not really? Isn’t it better that they be up and about instead of just laying there rotting? Seems more sensible to me. Even if they’re not very good housekeepers, they’re better than nothing. Probably. Maybe it’s a goblin thing. The dead are mostly for eating, to goblins.”

“I think I would still mind that less than this, truth be told.”

“That’s because you’re basically a goblin,” she said proudly, reaching over to pat him on the head. He grinned despite himself and set to work finishing his food.

An idea had taken shape by the time he’d done so, fueled by the lack of a gnawing ache in his stomach. “Would you like to go for a walk, Nott?” he asked her. “Just around the house a little bit. I need to stretch my legs.”

“All right.” She hopped down off the desk and took his hand, before he saw a flicker of hesitation pass over her face. “Not...not for very long, though, right? I know we shouldn’t _really_ be skiving off.”

His heart ached for her. “No, of course not,” he said, as soothingly as he could. “Just a turn around the entrance hall and then we will both get right back to work.” But now he was even more determined for the two of them to take a few more minutes as a break. He couldn’t let her be pushed too hard.

“That should be all right.” She looked genuinely relieved, and tugged on his hand to get him walking.

Caleb realized as soon as he’d stood up just how much he _needed_ to stretch his legs, but he had other intentions in wanting to explore the house a bit more in the light of day when everything was a little less terrifying. They passed by a zombie absentmindedly dragging a rag along one of the windows, passed a skeleton batting vaguely at some dust on an end table with a duster. Both the dead things turned to watch them pass with empty, sightless eyes, but Nott didn’t seem afraid at all, didn’t even miss a step, so Caleb held his breath and forced his magic back.

 _How did the old wives’ tale go?_ he wondered dazedly, as he and Nott made their way down first one flight of stairs and then another. A zombie moaned piteously at them from a landing as they went, and Nott patted his arm as Caleb flinched closer to her. _Hold your breath when you pass by a cemetery, or else the souls of the dead will enter through your mouth. This entire house is a cemetery, but it seems to have very few souls to go around_.

They stepped aside to avoid a skeleton making its way upstairs on some unknowable business, and at that point Nott had to remind him gently to start breathing again. It shouldn’t have felt like such a relief or such an accomplishment to get downstairs, but it did. The horror was partly in the strangeness of it all, Caleb knew. The dead weren’t supposed to be up and about and ineffectually handling the washing up while they oozed onto the floors. The dead were either supposed to be in the ground or trying to add the living to their ranks. With this strange, placid servitude, he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Still, they were here, this was his best chance to get a look at the entire house at once. Caleb pulled his hand away from Nott and quickly ran through the gestures and the words to let him detect magic. Nott, of course, recognized the spell immediately. “What are you doing?” she asked him, her voice an anxious whisper.

“Just curious,” he said, opening his eyes and seeing the world as it really was.

He saw something immediately, a veil of magic coating a door to his right, tucked beneath one of the staircases. Caleb made a beeline for it and leaned forward to examine it more closely, squinting to try and distinguish the auras he was seeing. Then he realized that there was nothing to distinguish, these were two different spells but of the same school of magic – specifically, abjuration.

He stared a little longer to let his mind settle and his eyes adjust, and eventually picked out what both the spells were. He knew them both himself, after all, and they were deceptively simple – one was an arcane lock to make the door harder to get into, one was an alarm spell to let you know if someone tried or succeeded. That meant they would be pathetically easy to dispel. He was half raising a hand  to do so before he caught himself.

 _Something_ important had to be on the other side of this door. Maybe it was Mollymauk, maybe it was something else. But once he broke in to see, that would be it, there’d be no more pretending. Even if the alarm didn’t go off, the vampire would eventually notice that his spells had been dispelled, and from there he would almost certainly know to suspect either Caleb or Nott which meant of course that he’d correctly identify Caleb as the culprit.

He could normally have simply recast the spells after investigating. He had the silver thread and bell in his pocket, but an arcane lock required twenty-five gold worth of gold dust and he had ten to his name.

He looked over to Nott without thinking, meaning to ask if she had any to spare. Then he saw the expression on her face, and stopped himself. Nott was looking at him... _suspiciously_. She was looking at him with genuine wariness, and it damn near stopped his heart and stole his breath because she hadn’t looked at him like that since the early days of them being tossed in a cell together.

“What’s so interesting behind that door?” she asked, a little sharply.

Caleb straightened up, caught himself fidgeting with his hands for a moment and buried them in his pockets instead. “I, ah, I don’t know,” he lied. It was a poor attempt at a lie, and he could tell immediately that she didn’t believe him.

Nott let out her breath in an aggravated sigh and came over to grab his hand again. “ _Caleb_ ,” she said, staring up at him intently. “I know how we...how we _usually_ do things. But I don’t want to steal from him! I don’t want to mess this up.” She pressed his hand between both of hers’, and her voice took on a pleading edge. Caleb could feel her trying to will him to understand. “I want to stay. I want _us_ to stay! It’s _safe_ here. He’ll protect us. I know how we used to do things but we don’t have to anymore! You can just...you can just relax and read books all day and everything will be better.”

“Oh, Nott...” And if he sounded contrite that was because he was, just a little bit – but only because he realized the mistake he’d made. He’d let himself be blind to the reality that he couldn’t trust Nott right now. Whatever enchantment she was under would let her treat him as she always did when not provoked otherwise, but her loyalties were elsewhere, now.

 _When_ it came down to a choice between Caleb and the vampire, he had to remember that he could no longer be sure of what her choice would be.

He could not trust Nott, but he would save her. He would save her and Beau and Fjord and Molly, like he hadn’t been able to save Astrid and Eodwulf.

Caleb knelt down and hugged her and at least she only hesitated a minute before she hugged him back. His hands were cold and he could feel himself shaking with the force of too many emotions he was trying too hard to contain. She should have known why, but she seemed just to assume that it was because he was guilty and repentant and that was better right now.

“I’m sorry, _schwester_ ,” he murmured. “You are right. I was letting old habits get the best of me. I truly wasn’t intending to steal anything, I promise you that.” And that was true, Molly was someone to be rescued, not something to be stolen. “But I...well, you know me. I get curious and prod too far into things I shouldn’t. I truly was only curious. We’ve already seen him cast some remarkable magic. I only wanted to find out more, to learn what I could.”

“You could have just asked him, silly,” Nott said, and she sounded happy and fond of him again and Caleb exhaled shakily, letting himself believe he had averted another disaster.

 _“Ja_ , yes, of course. It seems terribly obvious now. I should have done that from the start. And I will.”

“Well, if that’s all it is, that’s good! Max is really strong, Caleb, so I know he could help you get even stronger, and, and I’m sure he’d love to teach you!” She pulled away and grinned encouragingly at him and Caleb managed a weak smile in turn.

“We shall see,” was all he said, before getting back to his feet. “I don’t want to take him away from any important business.”

“We have time!” Nott said, taking his hand again and starting to lead him back upstairs. “No need to rush into anything.”

“Of course.”

As they went, Caleb tried to look around again and resume his scan of the house. Then he realized that his vision was back to ordinary again, and cursed internally. The shock of realizing that he was truly alone in the world right now had broken his concentration. He couldn’t risk casting it again with Nott right here after he’d only just managed to calm her down.

Nevermind. As Nott herself had said, there was always tomorrow.


	5. Impromptu Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester makes some friends and finds some information. Beau and Fjord return with supplies, and everyone has a decent meal.

Fjord and Beau were returning to the mansion with a rather fuller cart than they’d left with.

“They probably paid for that, right?” Jester whispered to Frumpkin, as they peered around the corner of a building to watch. “Yeah. That vampire guy lives in a big fancy house. He could totally have paid for that.”

She looked at Frumpkin and Frumpkin looked at her and she had never seen a more disbelieving look on a cat’s face in all her life. Jester sighed in resignation. “I know,” she said, because deep down she did. Her friends were being used as common bandits now. That was just great.

She might have chased after the cart to try and stop them, but she’d given her only vials of holy water to Caleb and so she had no way to cure the charm they were under short of knocking them out – and Jester wasn’t entirely sure she could take them both if it came to a fight, even if she thought she could have fought them with everything she had.

So she stayed hidden and watched sadly as the cart rolled away, back up the hill. Only after they were out of sight did she resume going about her business and asking questions.

If she was going to be here a few days, an inn seemed the logical first step. Jester could feel everybody staring at her as she made her way through the town with Frumpkin at her heels, but they really didn’t seem used to newcomers here, and from what she’d been able to gather they seemed even less used to newcomers who weren’t staying in the house on the hill.

Eventually she found her way to the Happy Weaver Inn and peered inside. It didn’t seem like much of an inn, to her mind – there was hardly anyone there, and the ones that were didn’t look especially happy to be there. In fact, it almost seemed like she’d come in at the end of the fight, someone was turning a table the right way up again and there were broken bits of chair on the floor…

“Oh,” Jester whispered. _Here_ was where Beau and Fjord had gotten the supplies.

She set Frumpkin down and smoothed the front of her dress and put on her best smile as she walked up to woman behind the bar. “Hello!” she chirped. “I would like a room!”

The bartender was a burly sort of woman, who looked like she’d be more at home working a blacksmith than cleaning mugs as she was right then. _I can’t believe Beau wasn’t blushing too hard to make trouble_ , Jester thought, as the woman set down the mug and turned to regard her. She even had thick, dark hair, just like Yasha did except it didn’t go pale at the ends.

“Just the one?” the innkeeper asked. “Two silver a night. Unfortunately, thanks to recent events, the price of breakfast has just gone up a fair bit.”

“Why is that?” Jester asked, even though she knew. This was an information gathering expedition, after all. Any little detail might help.

“The new lord and master’s got new dogs,” the woman said, and Jester was surprised she didn’t spit. “They need feeding. They came to collect just a short time ago.”

“Oh. So…you don’t have _any_ food?’

“Not a lot and, much as I don’t mean to be cruel, missy, I need to save most of what’s left for the locals.”

Jester hummed thoughtfully and tapped a finger against her lips. “What if I could give you some food?”

The innkeeper raised an eyebrow and gave Jester another once-over. Jester just beamed back, open and friendly, because this really would be the easiest thing in the world and she didn’t know why the other woman was being so suspicious.

“That’s kind of you to offer, lass, but we lost a fair amount and you don’t seem to have much on you,” said the woman after a thoughtful pause.

“I am pretty strong. And also pretty magic. Say, what’s your name, anyway?” Jester stuck a hand out across the bar.

After a moment’s further hesitation, the offer was accepted and the bigger woman shook her hand. “Norma. Owned the Happy Weaver coming on ten years now, no matter how much anyone tries to stop me doing it.”

“That’s pretty cool! Now listen, Norma.” Jester leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands, her tail swaying gently behind her. “I can make you a lot of food. Enough for everybody here in this tavern right now and maybe some more for later. It won’t taste like...anything, really, but it will fill you right up! The catch is that you’ve got to eat it before tomorrow or it goes bad super fast. Okay?”

The confidence with which Jester spoke seemed to be holding Norma’s attention. “I’d say we’ve got enough hungry folk around here that leftovers won’t be an issue.”

“Okay, great! That is what I thought. So I just need you and maybe you and you…” She pointed at a couple of other patrons that looked the least drunk. “Could you maybe push some tables together so I don’t accidentally spill anything and maybe if you have some empty barrels you could bring them up here!”

Everyone in the tavern was staring at her right now despite the fact that Jester had barely raised her voice. She felt a little embarrassed, despite herself, and offered the room a somewhat anxious wave before Norma came to her rescue.

“You heard the lady,” she said gruffly, coming around the bar and tying her hair up. “Seems we’re having a bit of an impromptu feast. Let’s get these tables together. Umber, take Damian and bring some of the empty barrels up.”

Jester seated herself primly on a stool and watched as everyone made arrangements for her. Everyone kept darting glances at her, even those who were working. Even Frumpkin seemed curious about what she was planning. Jester knew she had just made a pretty grand promise, but she also knew that she looked like the kind of girl who could pull it off and also that she could pull it off no matter what she looked like. So she didn’t shy away from anyone’s gaze, and just waited patiently for the stage to be set.

It was her friends who had made these people so grim and sad, even though she knew it hadn’t really been their choice. Jester could fix that, and she wanted to, on their behalf as much as hers’.

“Okay!” she said, clapping her hands together and getting back to her feet as at last the two stablehands came back up with two empty barrels and set them beside the clustered tables. “Time for some grub! Wish I had a dinner bell so I could ring it.”

She pulled her holy symbol out of her pocket, clasped it to her chest, and closed her eyes. It didn’t even occur to her to be worried about someone seeing exactly which symbol it was. Even if Jester had ever been ashamed to worship the Traveler, she could also easily tell that everyone here had bigger things to worry about.

“Dear Traveler,” she prayed, tracing the lines of the symbol with her fingers. “We are very hungry. Please give us lots of food and also some water would be great, too. Love forever and ever, Jester.”

The words of the prayer didn’t really matter – it was the praying that was the important part. And Jester felt the magical energies coalesce around her, but more importantly she heard the gasps from the people around her and the groaning of the tables as they were suddenly laden with food.

Jester opened one eye and grinned as she saw her handiwork. The food piled on the tables was plain fare, breads and cheeses and jerkies and such, but plentiful, and for people who had just had food taken out of their mouths it was obviously nothing to complain about. The empty barrels were now filled with clean, pure water. All the patrons in the bar didn’t need any further encouragement to tuck in, grabbing food and stuffing their faces and toasting with mugs of water and talking happily to each other. It felt like she’d brought the very spirit of this place back to life, and Jester was proud of herself.

“What do you want?” Norma asked, coming up to stand beside Jester, watching the impromptu celebration with a soft smile on her face.

“That is a really long story,” Jester said.

“I don’t doubt it, but I meant to drink. On the house. This was a kind thing you did.”

“Oh! Um. Milk would be lovely, please.” She still had the haversack, and the haversack still had a few days’ worth of supplies in it that she could stretch a lot further all on her own, so Jester felt no need to grab for the food. A drink and a chance to talk to someone who wasn’t hurrying somewhere else would be good enough.

There was apparently still some milk to be had, and Norma poured her a mug and set it down in front of Jester after they returned to the bar. “So,” the older woman said expectantly, leaning on the bar and looking to Jester. “What brings you to Tanner’s Crossing? Not the lovely scenery, I think.”

“Nah,” Jester said, raising her mug in a toast and then taking a long gulp. “Mostly I am just looking for my friends.”

“What friends would these be, then?”

“Um…” Jester cast about hastily for a way to make the reality of the situation sound a little better, then gave up and went for broke. “The guy on the hill’s new ‘dogs’, I think.”

It felt like the temperature of the air between them dropped by several degrees.

“Ah,” said Norma.

Jester squirmed a little in her seat. “But they weren’t that yesterday! He’s mind controlling them! And I’ve got to save them!”

She held Norma’s gaze resolutely for a moment, and it was the other woman who broke first. Norma let out a long sigh and looked away, her shoulders slumping so that she looked impossibly tired and sad there and then. Jester felt bad about yelling.

“I don’t doubt that’s how it is for them,” she said. “That’s how it is whenever he takes people from here. Never knew why, he’s strong enough to just drag whoever he wants up that hill. Maybe he just enjoys making people thank him for it. You understand, though, I can’t spare much sympathy. It might not be their choice, but it wasn’t ours’, either, and that was our food they rode off with.”

“I get it,” Jester said, though her throat hurt to say it. She swallowed another mouthful of her drink to give herself a minute to recover. “How long has he been here? How long has he been doing this?”

“Must be coming on three years now.”

“And he’s done this kind of thing before? Just whammied people and taken them up there to live with him?”

“On the regular, yeah. Normally it’s just a couple of people from the village. No telling who. Only thing that’s certain is that they never come back.” Norma stared down pensively at the polished bar for a long moment, before suddenly, hastily turning away to pour herself a drink of something much stronger than milk. Jester didn’t have to ask if one of those people had been someone special to her, but she knew better than to ask who.

“Every so often, though,” the older woman said, after she’d downed a respectable drought of ale. “He brings in some more colorful types. Your friends aren’t the first bunch, no.”

“But those more colorful types…they’ve never left there, either.” It wasn’t a hard conclusion to draw. Jester’s stomach hurt, doing queasy flip-flops of dread. At least when she reached down to beckon Frumpkin over, the cat came easily and curled up in her lap, already purring.

“No,” said Norma, and her voice was gentle as it could be but that did nothing to soften the blow.

Jester stared down pensively into her mug, her hands clenched so tight around it that her knuckles had gone pale. Then she lifted her drink to her lips and drained it all at once, before slamming it back down on the countertop and feeling the jolt of the impact up her arms and into her heart.

“Gimme a beer!” she declared. “I’m gonna make sure they’re the first and I wanna _celebrate_ that!”

Norma took one look at Jester and poured her half a mug of beer. Jester was about to protest, then she took a sip and immediately gagged. “Oh god that is the _worst_.”

The innkeeper chuckled, then took Jester’s drink and gulped it down in one. “Then _I’ll_ drink to that,” she said, setting the mug back down and offering Jester a smile that Jester was happy to return. “You’re a…unique sort. No one like you’s ever come through here since the bloodsucker set up shop. At least I suppose you won’t be making things worse.”

“I am really good at making things better,” Jester agreed. “All kinds of things! But, um…” She looked around anxiously, making sure there weren’t any mind controlled spies eavesdropping, before leaning closer and whispering to Norma. “But I could really use some help. Like, when does he come to town, and where does he go, and how do you kill a vampire…”

“He comes to town most every night,” Norma murmured back, keeping a wary watch over Jester’s head for those very same spies. “Once in a while he lures a couple of people out of their homes. Otherwise, he goes to the graveyard by the woods. As for how to kill a vampire, well, miss…that’s a question for your god, because we’ve been trying to figure that out for coming on three years now, and all its bought us is more empty houses.”

*  *  *

Beauregard and Fjord returned not long after Jester departed, and Caleb was glad that they seemed to have missed each other on the road. He’d never pegged Jester as being the sort with either a gift or a proclivity for stealth, but even if she wasn’t she was proving an admirably fast learner.

This time it was Fjord who came to find him, calling Caleb out to a meal he and Beau had apparently set up out on the front lawn. Caleb's eyes itched from magic and effort and his head was full of words he was still a long way from understanding, so just this once he was happy to tear himself away from the books and follow after his friend.

The first thing he saw when they got downstairs were skeletons and zombies fumbling with sacks and casks that they were bringing in from outside. Caleb watched them carefully as they passed, tracking their movement and their apparent destination. Nott had mentioned a cellar, so presumably that was where they were bound for, but a cellar was a useful place to hide things.

The smell of properly roasting meats distracted him from making any more extensive plans at the moment, though. Caleb caught himself drooling. The jerky had taken the edge off his hunger, but that edge returned with a vengeance.

“Yo!” Beau said, kneeling by a campfire and seeing to some steaks that were cooking on a pan over it. “Glad you decided to join us. Man, Maxwell wasn’t kidding. This will keep us going for a while.”

Nott was sitting beside her, alternating between taking bites out of a roasted potato and fanning her mouth from the heat of it. But she looked up as Caleb approached and smiled and patted the ground next to her, and he joined her with only a moment’s hesitation.

“Nott mentioned you’ve both been working hard,” Fjord said, passing Caleb another potato. “Must be hungry.”

“Starving,” Caleb agreed with feeling, before tearing into the food. He was so hungry, in fact, that he finished the potato before he properly realized that they were sitting on the front lawn, having a damn picnic while zombies and skeletons remained hard at work behind them, moaning and rattling to themselves as they took in the supplies. Beau and Fjord and Nott didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

It was jarring, to keep being reminded of the reality of his circumstances, but he knew that was better than the alternative. Besides, there _were_ more practical matters to consider, and when Beau served him up a respectably sized steak, Caleb wasted no time in focusing on those more practical matters and devouring it with a will.

Roasted vegetables followed, then some pastries, set to a backdrop of comfortably amiable chatter that eventually replaced the undead racket entirely. Even though Caleb felt a pang at the thought of Jester, no one else seemed to notice and so he was able to eat until he was full. He didn’t often get the chance to be genuinely full, he rarely bothered to try. Maybe it was something to do with being a mage, but food just seemed to burn up inside him faster than it did for others, and so he was used to being perpetually at least a little hungry. He’d given up trying to change that, but he had to admit that the impromptu feast was a welcome bright spark in an otherwise tense day.

For lack of anything better to do, he went back to work after that. Whatever was in these encoded pages was potential leverage, after all, and he wanted to take advantage of that as soon as he could, as well as doing anything he could to dissuade suspicion in Nott’s mind from earlier.

He got in a solid additional few hours’ worth of note-taking and attempted translations as the sun sank low in the sky. After it finally set, he had to cast a light spell on an empty inkwell so he could keep working. Not long, however, a knock came at the library door once more, and he heard Beau call out from the other side: “Hey, Caleb, you alive in there? Max is awake, says he wants to talk to us.”

Caleb froze, his quill dripping ink onto a half-filled page, and did some very quick mental math.

Unless he was very much mistaken, and when it came to time he hardly ever was, it was almost exactly twenty-four hours since this entire nightmare had first begun.

The enchantment was about to run out and Maxwell Virago was looking to reapply it.

“B-Be right there!” he called back.

Dimly, Caleb could see his hands starting to shake as if they belonged to a stranger. His breathing was so very loud again and his heart was racing so fast that it hurt. He could _feel_ himself starting to go away and tried desperately to fix the idea of his salvation in his head. One step at a time. Reach into his pocket. Pull out the holy water. Don’t drop it, please don’t drop it. He almost did, his trembling fingers fumbling with the little vial, but Caleb caught it just in time and let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

Open vial. Wet fingers. Draw the symbol of the Traveler on his face with the water – an archway, and then extending lines radiating outward. All the while and most importantly, _pray_.

“I do not know if we are really friends,” he whispered in a rough, choked voice, desperately casting out his mind for any sense that anyone was listening. “But I do know I am not too proud to beg.” He clasped his hands together and bowed his head, as he hadn’t done since he was a child. “ _Please help me._ ”

Then, out of the blue, he _felt_ something’s approval. He felt the spell complete, and as it did Caleb found himself feeling so very, very _safe_ , warmth and peace washing over him in a wave. The unfamiliarity of it was so overwhelming that it almost made him slump to his knees, but before he could entirely give in to the urge, Beauregard was opening the door and peering it at him.

“Don’t give me any of that ‘five more minutes’ crap,” she grumbled. “I know you and books. Come on, they’ll still be here for you tomorrow.”

“O-Of course, of course,” he stammered, hastily straightening up and hurrying after her. “Let’s go. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“I’m used to it,” she grumbled, slinging an arm over his shoulders and thankfully keeping pace with him anyway.

After his earlier rush of panic, surviving this latest hurdle proved almost anticlimactically simple. Maxwell was waiting in the library where he’d greeted them all that morning. Once again, the four of them lined up before him like dutiful students before their teacher. He asked them about their day, one by one, and one by one they all reported good news and as they did so Maxwell Virago stared deep into their eyes and murmured words of praise that wove his thrall back around him. There was no discernible change in any of them as he did so, they didn’t even seem to notice he was doing anything, but Caleb noticed and it made him feel a little sick with horror all over again.

Except when Caleb’s turn finally came, he found it easy to stare the monster right in the face and feel _nothing_ at all. He could tell that Maxwell was trying to enchant him but it was like hearing a storm battering at the door while you yourself was safe inside. It couldn’t touch him, his mind was safe, and it was a genuine effort not to break down laughing with relief. At least the calm and contentment on his face probably worked to his advantage, deceiving the vampire into thinking his efforts had been successful.

Of course, nothing could ever be entirely easy.

“You all must be tired,” Maxwell said after finishing with Caleb, stepping back and clapping his hands together, regarding them all with a smile. “You’ve all done excellent work today, and I thank you all for it. I knew that bringing you into my household would be the best decision for myself as well as you. But before I send you off to bed, there is just one more thing…”

He smiled so that his teeth glinted faintly in the dim candlelight. “I am just a little hungry after my rest.”

“I know how that feels,” said Beau, already pulling the neck of her shirt aside.

“You don’t even have to ask,” Ford added helpfully. “It’s the least we can do after all you’ve done for us.”

Nott started to unwind the bandages from around her neck, but Maxwell held up a hand. “Thank you, dear, but no. I’ve made…other arrangements, in your case.”

He stepped closer, pulled Beau to him, and tilted her head back. “Your other friends have proven more than generous enough.”

Beau didn’t so much as flinch, and the sight of it was all so desperately _wrong_ that Caleb had to close his eyes and turn his head away.

It didn’t help. The noises were bad enough. He didn’t know if the spell was wearing off or if this was all too much for even a god to protect him from, but his stomach was roiling now. To keep from being sick right there in front of everyone, he counted seconds to himself.

 _One, two, three, four_ and at nine, he heard Maxwell pull his fangs out of Beau with a contented sigh and he heard Beau let out a shaky breath. “Man, normally I need people to beat the shit out of me to feel this tired,” she said, and Caleb risked opening his eyes just in time to see Maxwell turning to Fjord instead. The half-orc tilted his head without even being asked, without his hair being grabbed. _You always were so helpful_ , Caleb thought, a little dazedly, and turned his head away just in time to avoid seeing the fangs piercing Fjord’s throat. Maybe he should have pretended not to be horrified, but he knew that was beyond him even now.

This feeding also lasted nine seconds exactly before he heard the vampire pull away with a satiated sort of sound. Caleb opened his eyes in time to see Beau reach out to support Fjord as he swayed. “Here you go, man,” she said, reaching up with a scrap of gauze to dab at the blood oozing from the fresh wounds.

“Thank you kindly, Beau,” said Fjord, wincing a little at her ministrations. “Oof, I know I’m gonna sleep well tonight.”

Caleb was so caught up in watching them, now, confirming for himself that they were still alive and not affected any further, that he didn’t realize Maxwell had moved on to him until the vampire spoke from right in front of him. “Caleb?” the monster said, low and soft. Caleb made an embarrassingly frightened sort of sound as his gaze snapped up to meet that of his captor. “Are you certain you’re feeling well enough to go through with this?”

 _I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe_ , Caleb babbled fervently in the hard-won privacy of his own head. And as he did so, it felt like something else was there as well, reassuring him. _You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe_ murmured a voice on the very edge of hearing.

“Y-Yes,” he stammered out loud, already reaching up to fumble for his scarf. At the last second, he remembered himself and tore last night’s bandage off his neck with a wince. “Yes, of course, s-sorry. Here.”

He tilted his head to offer his throat, and bit back a whimper when that didn’t keep Maxwell from winding fingers through his hair anyway. Caleb reached out blindly with one hand, yet again seeking _some_ sort of support, and this time it was Nott who stepped up to hold his hand. And that made it better, that made it a little easier to stand tall and not shrink away. _This is for her_ , Caleb reminded himself, and then Maxwell’s fangs pierced his flesh with a sickening sort of _crunch_.

It wasn’t any easier the second time around. Shock had blanked his mind and wiped his memory before, but that mercy was not allowed him this time.

There wasn’t even pain at first, just an indescribably awful _coldness_ and a feeling of invasion and loss. Once the shock faded, however, there was most certainly pain as well, a throbbing ache of torn and abused flesh. Caleb winced and squeezed Nott’s hand tightly as he felt the life being drained from him in huge, greedy gulps, leaving nothing but ice in his veins that spread throughout his body until he forgot what it was to be warm and alive.

 _One, two, five_ he thought, trying to count seconds, but his vision was going grey and fuzzy at the edges and his thoughts kept sliding out of reach. The vampire’s grip was like steel, fisted in his hair and gripping his shoulder hard enough that it seemed like that alone could keep him pinned and helpless in place. Caleb was so, so cold and his neck hurt fiercely and he was struggling to breathe but he didn’t know if he was getting any air, maybe the monster was taking that too along with his blood and _make it stop, make it stop, please…_

After what felt like a nightmarish eternity, the fangs in his throat were pulled free with a wet, sliding sound. The cold hands holding him fast let him go, and without their support Caleb swayed on the spot and then slumped to his knees, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths. He pressed one hand to his chest and the other to his mouth and breathed and breathed and tried not to sob with horror.

“Caleb?” he heard Nott saying, as if from very far away. She reached for him and he flinched away when he felt her touch his shoulder. He did not want any more hands on him tonight.

Beau did not give him the choice. “Hey, hey, easy,” she said, when he tried to bat her hands away. “Calm down. Just gonna clean up the blood. Your clothes are disgusting enough as it is.”

He winced as she swiped the gauze over his wounded neck. Caleb could tell that she was trying to be careful, but it didn’t make a difference at all. It still hurt. Once she was done, both her and Fjord worked together to heave him up from the floor, an arm around each of their shoulders. As he found his feet, Caleb lifted his head just in time to see Maxwell Virago licking some of Caleb’s blood off his lips.

He almost passed out. Dimly, he realized that at some point during that entire nightmare, the spell had worn off, and everything it had been shielding him from felt as though it were crushing him now.

“Thank you all,” said the monster, smiling brightly at all of them. “My dear, generous friends. Please, you should all go to sleep now. We all have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

Fjord and Beau helped Caleb walk for a few yards in the hallway before he was sure he could stand on his own two feet again. Nott trotted anxiously at their heels. “It seemed like he bit you for a little longer than the other two,” she said cautiously. “I know he’s hungry, but…he could have bitten me. Caleb, you look awful! You still need _some_ blood, you know.”

“I’m fine,” he said, glancing back at her and smiling even as his neck protested the movement. “Just a lightweight. You know that, Nott. I was just this bad last night, so please don’t worry. He doesn’t need to bite you. Just make sure you work hard, _ja?_ ”

“Of course!” Nott declared resolutely, and he patted her hand before holding it in his.

Caleb was pretty sure he managed to mumble a good night to his friends as he collapsed on his bed. He stayed awake just long enough to feel Nott curl up in the space behind his knees, and then exhaustion claimed him and kept him safe from dreams for another night.


	6. Danger in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester tries to look around town once the sun goes down. This soon proves to be a somewhat dicey proposition.

Word got around about Jester in a hurry in Tanner's Crossing. She used up another food creation spell, and in turn got a lot of people gathered around the Inn that she could talk to. Most of them corroborated Norma's story - Maxwell Virago had come to town about three years ago. One of the first things he'd done had been to tear down the temple that stood beside the graveyard until nothing but scattered stones remained, and kill everyone who had once lived in the mansion on the hill. Periodically he'd come down to the graveyard and raise up a few corpses to take home with him. More graves lay empty than full, these days, except for the graves Maxwell filled himself with those who displeased or stood against him.

Occasionally he brought outsiders into town that stayed with him in his house and came down to town to collect taxes and food, until one day they didn't and no one ever saw them again. 

Sometimes people tried to flee town, and maybe some made it, but just as many others had their mangled, gnawed corpses dumped back in the square as a warning to the rest. Jester supposed that was probably done by zombies. She'd never known why zombies ate people, but they did if they caught you and they tended to make a mess of it. Maxwell was probably diverting some of his creations to watch the town.

Sometimes, when he found himself in need of fresher meat, Maxwell would even send zombies in to drag people out of their homes and up to his house where they were only ever seen again as more zombies. Or else sometimes he'd just...convince people to come outside and go with him. No one was quite sure how he did it, but everybody had theories. Jester kept her knowledge of the reality of the situation to herself. These people didn't need more reason to panic. Still, it was curious to her that Maxwell didn't just go in and get people himself. Was it the case that vampires just couldn't go inside peoples' houses? It was an odd weakness to consider, but she'd seen stranger. It was just nice to discover that vampires  _did_  have weaknesses, however minor. 

She picked up other details, but Jester got the sense that some of the rumors ranged into campfire stories. And campfire stories were fun, but she was a girl on a mission.

Really, the best way to learn what was true and what wasn't was to see for yourself. So the sun had set, and here she was, already regretting her decision just a little bit.

Graveyards were fun places to hang out with your friends, but terrible places to wait alone for monsters in the dark.

She supposed Frumpkin was her friend now, but he wasn’t very big and he didn’t talk to her. The cat was settled down under a dead bush to watch her work as Jester watched from behind a tree. She considered the amount of time she’d spent just today hiding behind things, and didn’t like it. It had better not become a trend. She had spent most of her life hiding up until now and didn’t much like to be reminded of that fact.

But for now, she could accept that it was her best option. Maybe once she saved Caleb he could teach her how to be invisible.

A wolf howled somewhere in the distance, and Jester felt a shiver race up her spine. “Nice doggies,” she whispered, pressing closer to the tree and casting an anxious glance around. She didn’t  _see_  any wolves skulking through the dark at that moment, so after a tense scan of her surroundings, Jester went back to watching the graveyard.

“Smack me on the leg if you see any wolves,” she told Frumpkin instead, and the cat meowed in what sounded like an assenting sort of way.

One thing she learned about Maxwell Virago in the next five minutes was that Caleb was not the only one capable of turning himself invisible. One minute the graveyard was empty and the next minute  _there he was_ , standing between two graves and looking in her direction. Jester hastily pulled back into her hiding place, clapping both hands over her mouth to muffle a startled shriek.

Rather than risk being seen again, she rummaged around in the haversack and pulled out an elaborate, beautifully crafted glass eye. Holding it to her eye, Jester murmured the words for a spell of clairvoyance, casting her vision behind her and towards the vampire to better let her see what he was doing. It wouldn’t let her hear shit, but she liked to think she’d gotten good enough at magic that she didn’t always need to hear exactly what was being said anymore.

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, it was like she was looking right over Maxwell’s shoulder as he carved arcane sigils in the air. As she watched, something took shape in the soil of the grave before him, the dirt bubbling up angrily and taking a brutish, vaguely humanoid form. It reminded Jester dimly of the rock monsters they’d seen in the catacombs below Zadash, once, only its form was far more feeble and sicky-seeming. Even so, when Maxwell commanded it to do something – apparently, to dig up the grave – it did so with a will.

The earth monster dug up one grave, then two, then three. Maxwell stepped up to one, and waved a hand so that the coffin lid flew off. Jester bit back a wince at the sight of the corpse within. It hadn’t been dead long, but that meant it was still oozing a bit, especially from a gaping chest wound where something had ripped out its heart.

Still, after the vampire cast another spell, that did nothing to prevent the corpse from opening its eyes and letting out a long, shuddering moan. Jester heard it easily from where she sat, and felt a chill go up her spine.

As the zombie started to clamber up out of its grave, Maxwell repeated the process on another body that had been in the ground long enough to start to go skeletal. It didn’t have enough of a throat left to make any noise at all, but it clacked and ground its teeth, rattling its skull, as it came to life and came up out of the ground at his command.

Jester was just settling down to try and push past her shock and memorize the spell, but her target did not repeat it a third time.

Instead, he simply reached down into the third grave, and the corpse within reached up to accept the offer of help up and out. This body was far more freshly dead and neatly killed and seemed much more  _alert_  and  _alive_  than the zombie or the skeleton.

 _Undead, but not like zombies_ , she remembered Caleb saying.  _Much smarter. Much more…human_.

And unless Jester was very much mistaken, it seemed as though Maxwell Virago was suddenly not the only one in town.

Mawell was saying…something to the other vampire. Jester strained her real ears to hear it while she watched with phantom eyes, but the best she could hear was indistinct murmuring. She had a heartstopping moment where it seemed like the vampires’ gazes darted  _right towards her_ , but nothing else happened, they didn’t call out or come for her, so it must have just been her imagination.

When the words were exchanged and all was said and done, Maxwell disappeared again, except now that she was looking closer she could see that he’d never turned invisible at all. He’d just become a small, fluttering bat.

The other vampire turned into a cloud of mist instead. Together they floated off towards town, past Jester’s hiding place. Jester covered her mouth again, scarcely daring to breathe until the mist of the other vampire was indistinguishable from the mist of the night and the bat was lost to the darkness. Through the spell, she could see Maxwell’s new slaves starting to slowly shamble up the hill towards the mansion.  

And then she had to muffle a cry of alarm as Frumpkin started to swat very insistently at her leg. Jester closed her clairvoyant eyes and opened her real ones in time to hear twigs snapping and wolves growling and see many pairs of hungry yellow eyes stalking closer in the darkness.

“N-Nice doggies,” she stammered, getting slowly to her feet and gathering Frumpkin in her arms. Her back was to the tree, and Jester risked a glance up at it to see if she could climb up it. Wolves couldn’t climb trees, right? “Good doggies. I will give you a treat if you don’t eat me…”

The tree was most definitely not climbable. It was bare and dead, and those branches it had left within reach obviously couldn’t hold her weight. She’d need to pull out her grappling hook to get up high enough and she didn’t know if she’d be able to stay up there and she didn’t have time anyway because now when she looked around again she could see the wolves with their hackles up and their jaws slavering, slowly surrounding her.

One, the biggest one, the one in front, lunged closer to her and snapped its teeth just shy of her arm. Jester flinched back with a gasp of fright…and then she felt herself getting angry.

 _“Flee!”_ she snarled back in Infernal, infusing her voice with a command that the weak-willed would find impossible to disobey. Even if these didn’t seem to be acting like normal wolves, they  _were_  still wolves, and her will had to be stronger than theirs’.

Sure enough, the big beast flinched back with a yelp, before turning and dashing away from her.

That still left about ten other wolves, who turned and watched it run before turning their gaze and their hunger back to her. It still bought her a crucial second, though, and by the time they’d refocused Jester was already finishing her next spell. “Sanctuary!” she cried, holding her holy symbol out before her. It glowed blue in the darkness, holy light radiating from it and around her in a bubble. It wasn’t a shield, not really. The wolves still kept trying to press closer to her, testing her defenses, sniffing at her and growling. But whenever they tensed to lunge, it was as if they thought better of it, changed their mind halfway through, as the magic dampened their aggression and made Jester less of a target.

The spell would end if she made any aggressive action towards them, but the spell would end in a minute anyway. So Jester gulped and started to slowly inch her way forwards, seeking a path through the press of fur and teeth. The wolves growled and whined, but the spell forced them back just enough, and Jester was able to find her way.

The instant the way ahead of her was clear, she ducked her head and ran for it as fast as she could, racing back towards town. She knew there were vampires there but she also knew that her odds of losing the wolves were much better in a town than in the wilderness. One problem at a time.

The spell wore off ten seconds later and the pack sent up a howl behind her before giving chase. Jester’s gaze darted around, seeking some avenue of escape as the town came up ahead of her. A tree to climb, a wall to hop up onto,  _something_.

Tanner’s Crossing was dark and quiet as the grave. The streets were empty and the shutters were drawn on every house that flashed past her. Without entirely thinking, Jester’s path took her back towards the inn, but when she slammed into the door she found it locked and barred. “Let me in!” she screamed, pounding on it. “Let me  _in!_ ”

Frumpkin yowled a warning. Jester turned and darted out of the way as one of the wolves lunged for her, teeth snapping together just where her throat had been a second before. Jester gritted her teeth and held out her holy symbol again, calling for sanctuary and recasting the spell.

The wolves looked like they were just about to  _explode_  with frustration at this point as they were pushed back and resumed pacing a restless line around her. Jester could understand the feeling, as she knelt down, pulled off the haversack, and went rummaging for the grappling hook.

“Come on,” she whispered beneath the sounds of their whines and barks. It was like she could hear Caleb’s voice in her head, counting down seconds. “Come  _on!”_

She cut her hand on the grappling hook with how hastily she pulled it out, but Jester gritted her teeth, turned her back on the wolves with a supreme effort of will, and launched it at the roof. She held her breath until she felt the hook catch on a shingle, tugged until she was sure it was taught, and heaved herself up just as the spell ran out and the wolves surged forward.

One leg exploded with pain and Jester felt a forcible  _yank_  downwards. It was a minor miracle she was able to keep her grip. Jester gritted her teeth in pain and frustration, twisted where she hung, pointed down at the beast, and fired a bolt of sacred flame right in its face. It fell back to the ground with a howl of pain, and by the time others surged forward to take its place, Jester had clambered out of reach, dripping blood onto the ground beneath her.

Frumpkin leaped out of her arms and onto the roof as soon as it was within reach. Jester dragged herself up after the cat, panting, collapsing onto the reassuringly solid, reassuringly  _high_  ground. The wolves continued barking and howling below her, obviously disappointed to have been cheated out of a kill.

Jester remembered with a chill that the two vampires were somewhere in town. If they came to investigate the racket, if they found her up here, the game was up.

She could have simply cast a sphere of silence around them, but what if that was more suspicious, what if the vampires heard all the barking and howling cut off all of a sudden and wondered why?

She had an idea. It wasn’t a very pleasant one, though. And it would be just a little complicated, too.

Jester screwed up her face, pointed at the ground, and invoked duplicity right in the center of the wolves.

She didn’t know much about wolves, but something told her that the way the beasts immediately fell upon the image of her was…unnatural. Her duplicate was about as perfect an illusion as it was possible to be, so they probably  _felt_  themselves tearing through a body – she’d never let herself think that far about it before. But it shouldn’t have been the same as tearing through  _her_. It felt to Jester like real animals, wolves that weren’t being commanded by something else, should have known that.

Instead, they just seemed to be egged on by the screams of agony Jester commanded her clone to send up as she went through the motions of being devoured, coupled with the sounds of rending flesh and breaking bones that she added with Thaumaturgy.  _It’s just a game_ , Jester thought desperately to herself, trying not to be sick, trying not to look.  _Just a trick. Haha, I fooled you._

When the wolves finally stepped away, leaving the image of a mutilated corpse in their wake, Jester had just enough presence of mind to overlay it with a silent image obliterating any possible resemblance the duplicate still had to her. Jester realized that she’d done so just in time, because as she peeked cautiously over the edge of the roof to finish her work, she saw Maxwell Virago stalking slowly nearer to inspect the wolves’ handiwork.

 _Please don’t touch it,_  she prayed.  _Please don’t touch it. Oh, Traveler, please don’t let him touch it._

He didn’t, and Jester felt a sigh of relief building up in her chest until it felt like her lungs would explode. He just stared down at the corpse for several seconds, and she heard him hum thoughtfully. “So here’s what became of our little spy,” he murmured, reaching out to stroke one of the wolves fondly on the heads. “As always, my pets, you never disappoint me.”

Then he turned and headed away, off in a random direction. She couldn’t bring herself to care which way. The wolves started to slowly leave the scene, then, wandering away in every direction, as if they’d been dismissed and whatever magic had bound them together had dissipated.

Only when the streets were entirely empty and entirely still once more did Jester let herself believe that she’d made it.

Of course, once that realization sank in, the pain in Jester’s leg rather forcibly reminded her of its existence. She winced as she moved it wrong, pain throbbing through her, before dragging her gaze over to it and assessing the damage as calmly as she could.

The teeth had deeply scored her flesh, drawing long, bloody gouges from her knee to her ankle. Jester bit her lip, fighting back tears of shock.

Being alone  _and hurt_  really was just the worst.

Frumpkin did the best he could, nuzzling himself against her side and purring in a reassuring sort of way. She petted him gratefully, but when she looked down at the cat she couldn’t help but feel disappointed that Frumpkin’s normal eyes looked back up at her.

“This really,  _really_  sucks,” she whispered emphatically, and the cat let out a sad sort of “mrrp” in agreement. With a shaky sigh, she reached out, rested a hand over the wound, and called up her healing magic. When that proved insufficient to entirely close the cuts, she closed her eyes and prayed directly to the Traveler instead.

“I don’t know if I’m doing any of this right,” she said, swallowing painfully as her voice broke. “I don’t even know if…if any of this is what I’m  _supposed_  to be doing. This isn’t how it was supposed to go, right? I was supposed to, to put brats in their place and make sure people knew how cool you are and make you laugh! And I’m not doing  _any_  of that now! This is…this is scary and really just a lot and I don’t even know if I can do it…”

She knew it was awful of her to be sitting here crying. Caleb was counting on her. Her friends  _needed_  her. She was their only chance, but it wasn’t  _fair_  that she was their only chance! Caleb had stronger magic than she did and Beau was stronger than she was and Nott was sneakier and Fjord was smarter and Molly was braver.

She should have been the one mind controlled, and someone else should be sitting here instead of her. Everyone would have a better chance.

In the end, she knew this also wasn’t much of a prayer of healing. But the Traveler heard her, anyway. She felt a familiar hand, unseen but no less warm, close over hers’ where it rested on her leg. She felt something gently, chidingly tap her nose, and the  _shhh_  she heard on the very edge of hearing might have been the wind or it might have been his voice.

She also felt the pain fade entirely. When Jester looked down at her wounds once more, they healed over completely, with only some fine, faint scars to mark that she had been hurt at all.

That made her feel a little better. That made it easier to get her breath back, to wipe at her eyes and make sure they stayed clear, to pull herself together just a little bit.

“I guess this is kinda what you meant about ‘sometimes you need to make your own fun’, huh?” she asked. “Okay. I…I’ll figure something out. Maybe after I get off this roof.”

She waited on the roof a little longer anyway, just to be absolutely certain that no vampires or angry wolves were going to pass by her hiding place again. Only then did Jester slowly lower herself back to the ground.

At that point, she discovered that there was still no one awake or willing to open the front door and let her in. That was frustrating and scary, but Jester clenched her fists and went to work searching for her room’s window instead. Once she found it, it was a simple matter of using Thaumaturgy to slam it open, then throwing her grappling hook up there instead and clambering up and into the relative safety of indoors.

It was as if a switch had been thrown – once her feet touched down onto the floor, once she had closed and barred the window behind her and Frumpkin, Jester was suddenly tired enough to be shaking. Yet she couldn’t imagine she could bring herself to sleep, not now that she’d had such a close call with the terrors that stalked the nights of Tanner’s Crossing.

Fortunately, though she’d had to use a lot of magic to get this far, Jester had one very important spell left to her.

A bright, white light bloomed in the center of the room – indistinct, at first, but slowly growing more and more familiar until it was a spectral, radiant image of her mother. The guardian couldn’t speak, but that was fine, because Jester knew her memory could never do her mother’s voice justice. But the way it smiled was close enough, familiar enough, a reassuring smile that said  _go to sleep, my lovely daughter, I’ll watch over you_.

It was reassurance enough to let Jester curl up wearily in bed, cuddling Frumpkin to her chest. It was such a relief to be able to sleep at last.


	7. Beyond the Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester reports back to Caleb. Caleb picks a couple of magical locks.

The next day, Jester conjured up some more food and water for the inn, enchanted some holy water from that conjured water, made a cold breakfast for herself of leftover rations, then started on her way back up the hill after Frumpkin. The cat didn’t warn her of the cart’s approach this time, she didn’t see it at all, and Jester couldn’t tell if that meant she was early or late to meet Caleb. It certainly felt like she might have slept in, and that thought alone made her quicken her pace anxiously.

Once she got close enough to the house, she repeated her route from earlier, darting from cover to cover until she could see one big window that wasn’t curtained off, one window that let her see into the library and see a figure sitting bent over a desk. Jester slumped down in yesterday’s hiding spot, drew out her scrap of wire, and twirled it between her fingers. “Good morning, Caleb.”

She peeked up to see that he didn’t knock anything over today, which was strangely gratifying. Like he hadn’t even been surprised to hear from her, like even Caleb hadn’t doubted she’d be back.

_“Good morning, Jester.”_

“Did you sleep okay?’

_“No.”_

“Me, neither.”

_“I think I may have found some potentially useful avenues of investigation, however.”_

“Ooh! Me, too!”

She heard him smile.  _“Very good. Would you mind if I went first, though?”_

“Sure thing.”

_“Because it starts with me asking if you could spot me fifteen gold.”_

That was an odd enough request to make Jester pause before she spun the wire again. “Why? Are you going on a shopping trip in town or something?”

He huffed in irritation.  _“Magic can be expensive when you don’t have a god in your corner.”_

“Magic can be expensive even when you  _do_! Paints don’t come cheap. What kind of spell?”

_“I think I’ve found where Virago is keeping important things. Or at least, they are important enough that he’s locked his door behind two alarm spells. I need to be able to recast those spells once I am done snooping, or else he will know something is wrong. But one of those spells takes twenty-five gold in gold dust. I only have ten. Hence, the need for fifteen more.”_

“Okay…” That sounded sensible enough, she supposed. “One sec.” Jester reached into the money pouch on the haversack and carefully counted out forty gold. She glanced over to Frumpkin, about to ask the cat to deliver the gold to Caleb, when the logistics of that suddenly caught up with her.

“Caleb?”

“ _Ja?”_

“This is a lot of gold to ask Frumpkin to carry in his mouth. Or even in a pouch. I think you might have to come out and get it.”

She heard him grumbling to himself, and then he sighed.  _“Probably, yes. One moment, please. Are you right in front of the window, would you say?”_

“Uh-huh. Behind this tree with the red bush next to it.”

Caleb didn’t reply right away, but what he  _did_  do was open a hole in space about five feet in front of her, a doorway looking directly into the library and directly at him. Jester gasped in shock and then felt her heart soar with relief as Caleb stepped through it and sat down on the grass right next to her.

“Hello,” Caleb said, and that was all she gave him time to say before Jester threw her arms around him. She felt him go tense for a minute, before he hugged her back – awkwardly, as Caleb usually was where hugs were concerned, but heartfelt all the same.

“Was this all a ruse to get me to come outside so you could hug me?” he asked wryly, raising an eyebrow at her when Jester finally pulled away and sat back.

“Not  _just_ for that,” Jester said, grinning at him before gesturing to the small stack of gold. “You weren’t gonna make Frumpkin carry all of this, were you?” A thought occurred to her, and she looked to Frumpkin and pointed at Caleb. “Frumpkin! Go sit on his shoulders like a scarf!”

Frumpkin did not need to be told twice. Chirping animatedly, he trotted right up to Caleb, hopped up into his lap, and clambered up and onto his wizard’s shoulders where he settled down, long and languid. Jester could see the tension visibly draining out of Caleb once the cat was in his usual place, and he smiled faintly as he reached up to scratch his familiar’s chin.

“I could have told him to do that,” Caleb said to her, though he was smiling faintly. “He  _does_  still listen to me, you know.”

“I know!” Jester said brightly. “But I did it for you!”

“Thank you.” Caleb seemed to properly notice the stack of gold for the first time, then. His eyes went a little wide. “That is a lot more than fifteen gold.”

“You might need to cast the spell twice.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “That is true. A very good point.” And Jester sat and watched as he counted the gold one by one into one of the larger pockets on his coat.

“Speaking of twice,” she said, when he was done. “I brought you more holy water.” She held out the two vials to him, and Caleb looked genuinely a little dizzy with relief as he took them. “I could have made more, but I found out last night that it’s kinda dangerous around here. I had to use up a lot of magic. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Jester. This is more than enough – for tonight and in case of emergencies.” He tucked the vials reverentially into a more hidden pocket of his coat.

“So it worked? The spell worked, right? I told Frumpkin to bite you if you were mind controlled so I guess it worked.”

Caleb gave his cat an affronted look. Frumpkin blinked slowly back at him, the picture of innocence.

“It did,” he said to Jester, settling back again. “Exactly as you said it would. Thank you. I think I can take bolder steps now that I know I am safe from falling under the same effect as the others. I am hoping to get into the room tonight.”

“Only if you think it’s safe.”

He nodded, but she was pretty sure he ignored that particular stipulation, and Jester bit back a sigh. “Did you find anything else?” she asked instead, not wanting to ask but helpless to deny her curiosity a second longer.

“Bits and pieces,” Caleb said thoughtfully, staring down at his hands where they were clenched in his lap. “I don’t know if they add up to anything yet.”

“I am very good at math. Try me!”

“He has me translating some sort of ritual. I still don’t know what it’s for, exactly, but it seems to be related to blood magic. Which I imagine was the obvious guess to begin with, given that it was apparently a ritual of Lucien’s design.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want him to know it.”

“Nor do I. But I think I can stall him a while, there. The other strange thing is what’s in the rest of the library.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve  _found_  books about vampires, Jester. Treatises and, and personal accounts. It’s as if Virago is or was  _studying_  vampires.”

“But…he  _is_  a vampire! He could just look in a mirror!” A mad, desperate hope occurred to Jester, then, as it sank in just what Caleb was really saying. “Does that mean you’ve found out how to kill them?!” she asked breathlessly, leaning closer.

The disappointment on his face answered her question before his voice did. Caleb shook his head miserably, clenching his fists. “Personal accounts are unreliable, by and large. I am finding a great many contradictory details. I need to synthesize them into something more coherent, pick out the common threads. Then we might have something.”

“W-Well, that’s okay!” Jester said, trying to reassure him, trying to keep her voice bright. “It’s only been a day, and you’ve already found out a lot. Oh, and I found out some stuff, too! Want to hear it?”

“Very much so.”

She told him what she’d learned from town – about how Maxwell Virago had settled into this old mansion about three years ago, that he somehow periodically took one or two people out of their homes that were never seen again, that he’d brought other adventurers to the house that had served him for a time and then also never been seen again. She told him of her lead about the graveyard, what she’d seen him doing there, the other vampire and then the wolves.

“Why does he need so many undead?” Caleb murmured, rubbing his chin and staring at nothing. “What is he using them for? They can't  _all_  be cleaning staff. And another vampire…hm. That might actually be good for us.”

“How do you mean?”

“I  _have_  found fairly reliable accounts of this – vampires can create other vampires. The vampires he creates are subservient to him. By extension, that means they must also be  _weaker_. We don’t know how to kill vampires. But I would rather test out ideas on the weaker one than the stronger one.”

Jester nodded cautiously. “Still gotta find it, though. You haven’t seen it in the house?”

“No. Depending on what Virago has it doing, it might have made a den for itself somewhere nearer to the town, or maybe even within it. A lot of empty houses, you said. That means a lot of places to hide. It would serve him well to have eyes and ears nearer to his ‘subjects’. You’re  _certain_  you don’t want to try learning that spell to locate creatures again?”

Jester let out a huff of frustration. “We tried like five times! It’s not gonna happen! I’ll figure something out.”

“I could try to cast it through Frumpkin, but he needs to be nearby and it only works for a fifth of a mile. I don’t know if the graveyard is close enough.”

“Caleb, I’ll figure something out. You’ve got enough to worry about. Let me find us a practice dummy.”

“Okay.” He still didn’t look happy about it. “Is there anything else you discovered?”

Jester cast her mind back over the events of the previous day, hastily replaying everything in her head from the moment she’d crept into town from the moment she’d collapsed into bed. It wasn’t a very pleasant recollection, and it was made worse when she didn’t recall anything else useful. “No. Sorry,” she mumbled, slumping where she sat.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Jester.” Caleb reached over and patted her on the shoulder. Frumpkin chirped in agreement. “Any sense we can get of Virago’s movements, plans, and magical capabilities is valuable. We are in this for the long haul. Little pieces will add up, and…and I am glad you are here to help me put them together.”

She would have hugged him again, but that might have meant dislodging Frumpkin. She knew that Caleb wasn’t great at talking to people, let alone reassuring them, but the fact that he was  _trying_  to do so for her when he had so much else to worry about meant a lot.

She was newly resolved not to let down his faith in her. Jester mustered up a smile once more. “So you’ll keep looking up ways to kill vampires and I’ll find us a vampire to kill, and we’ll meet back here tomorrow?”

“Yes. Though, ah, I might not be able to come outside again. The spell I just used is…surprisingly taxing. It’s just that it’s, it’s also the safest way to make certain no one sees me coming and going. Better if we talk through the wires whenever possible.”

“Okay.” Jester felt her tail droop with disappointment, but tried to bolster herself. “I guess it’ll be kind of like a fairytale! With you as the fair princess trapped up in the tower and I am the brave knight who’s going to rescue you from the terrible dragon! But in the meantime we exchange words of love in secret messages and…” Actually, this was pretty good stuff. Jester went rummaging for her sketchbook, and as she did so her fingers brushed something else important.

“Jester?”

“Mhm?” Jester asked, taking out her sketchbook and her paints and setting them aside.

“Are you really about to draw a picture of me as a princess in a tower?”

“You could be a prince if you wanted, but I’ve got an idea for a dress that’d look  _really_  good on you. But that’s for later. Actually, I was gonna give you this!” Jester pulled out the lead-lined box, pulled the dodecahedron out of the box, and passed it to Caleb. He was still blushing rather fiercely, and almost fumbled the artifact when she pressed it into his hands. “Your turn!”

He looked from the artifact to her and back again, until his wits overcame his embarrassment and he tried to hand it back to her. “No, you take it. You are hunting vampires, you are in the most danger, you need it.”

“You’re in this guy’s  _house_ , Caleb!” she said, shoving it back to him. “You need it! What if he finds you before you can recast the spell? Whatever happens to me, I’m not gonna get whammied. But if he sneaks up on you, it’s like you said! There’ll be nobody left inside who can find Molly. You’ve got to take care of yourself!” Not for the first time, she wished she’d been born with blood more like Molly’s, so she could have an easier time convincing her friends to stop being idiots.

The look on her face was apparently severe enough to convince him, however, because Caleb took the dodecahedron back into his arms, set it in his lap, and stared into it intently. After a moment, the little mote of possibility floated from it to him, and Jester let out a sigh of relief as Caleb came back to reality.

“Now you make sure and use that if you need it!” Jester said, prodding him in the chest. “Don’t get killed trying to save it, okay?”

“All right.” He nodded, and smiled faintly at her, and he was looking directly at her and so Jester chose to believe he wasn’t ignoring her this time. Caleb passed her back the dodecahedron, and Jester replaced it in its box and the box in her haversack, laying her sketchbook reverentially on top where she could easily grab it later.

“You promise?” she asked, just in case.

“Yes, yes, I promise.”

She held out her pinkie for him, and when his only response was to stare blankly at her for a long moment, Jester guided his hand to match hers’, linked their pinkies together, and shook them solemnly. “Okay. I believe you.” He sat back, looking faintly puzzled but also a little reassured, so she considered the moment a win. “Do you want to hang on to Frumpkin?”

Frumpkin was purring audibly with contentment at being draped across his wizard’s shoulders. Caleb regarded his cat sadly for a moment. “Very much.” But he still lifted Frumpkin off and passed him back to her. Jester’s heart just about broke when the cat yowled in protest, ears flat against his head, but he went without any further resistance.

Then Caleb murmured a few words and opened another door in space. Yet again, the library was waiting for him on the other side.

“Good luck,” Jester called softly as he stepped inside and imprisoned himself once more. “See you tomorrow.”

He glanced back at her and smiled, but if he had anything to say in reply, the door closed before she could hear it.

Jester made her way carefully back down the hill, Frumpkin in her arms, making and discarding plans in her head for how she might hunt down a vampire spawn.

*  *  *

Caleb kept working until Nott brought him some lunch. It was rather better fare than the day before. When Nott told him one of the skeletons had made it, he only hesitated a moment before digging in. At least the skeletons couldn’t ooze into his food.

She asked him after they were done eating if he wanted to take a walk and stretch his legs again. He agreed, hoping to avoid making her think that he was still hiding something. But, in concession to the day before, they simply took a few turns around the third floor instead. Then she left him in the library once more and wished him a good rest of the day. Caleb worked for another hour before he pulled out an eyelash encased in tree sap and made himself invisible.

It would not protect him from magical detection, he wasn’t even entirely sure it would protect him from the cleaning staff, but as he prepared to descend into the belly of the beast Caleb couldn’t resist trying to give himself every advantage that he could. He’d already exhausted his strongest magics for the day. Avoiding a fight entirely by any means necessary was his only chance here. He wished he could have added the protection spell on top of it, but he couldn’t split his concentration.

Caleb let himself out of the library and made his way down to the entrance hall. There was a bad moment where he was creeping by Nott's lab and stepped on a loose floorboard that creaked loud enough for her to hear it - he heard it when the general puttering on the other side of the door stopped abruptly. Caleb hastily called upon the mote of possibility. As it sputtered out in his chest, he saw the skeleton a few feet away from him get a little careless with the duster and knock an ornamental bowl off its table and onto the floor, where it shattered.

 _"Keep it down out there!"_ Nott called from within, and then he heard her go back to work. Caleb bit back a sigh of relief and carried on.

At last, he stood before the door he’d marked the day before, the door hidden behind two separate alarm spells. Fortunately, they were both spells he was familiar with, and they were both weak on their own. A simple dispel proved enough to unravel them both without any additional effort on his part, leaving only an ordinary door to bar his way.

Forcing himself to turn the handle and open the door was a more daunting endeavor by far, and Caleb was proud of himself for doing so. His hands were only shaking a little bit.

The sight revealed beyond the door was strange, because the sight revealed beyond the door was…nothing, just grey fog. That could have meant anything, any number of different magics, but trying to detect what sort would cost him his invisibility. So Caleb took a breath, sent up a prayer to the Traveler in his head, and stepped through the haze.

As he crossed over the barrier of whatever it was, the smells and the sounds hit him like a hammer to the face. Caleb’s hands flew up to cover his mouth as he fought not to gag, as the death rattles of yet more zombies assaulted his senses.

He forced his eyes open, took in the scene before him, and felt his heart stutter with dread.

"Oh,  _scheiße_..."

He’d walked into some kind of hellish laboratory.

Shelves of potions lined the walls, along with racks of assorted instruments ranging from fine and deft to grotesque and barbed. A couple of wooden boxes filled with scroll cases sat between the racks. One side of the room was given over entirely to rows of tables, some of which still had corpses strapped to them.

Some of those corpses were moving, apparently having been alerted by the sound of the door opening and the faint noise of his footsteps on the polished floor. They stared towards him with empty eyes, clawing at the air in their restraints, moaning hellishly. Some of the corpses were still. When he swallowed down bile and managed to creep a little closer, he saw that they also looked rather more fresh.

 _“I-If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,”_ Caleb sang quietly to himself, inching closer still.  _“If it’s mixed, don’t try to mix it…th-think before you speak and look before you leap...”_

One of the corpses that hadn’t been moving turned out to be just a particularly docile zombie. The smell of meat roused it in a hurry, and it took a swipe at him. Caleb felt its broken, jagged nails scratch at the blessedly thick material of his coat. He stepped back in a hurry, muffling a yelp, before angling a wide circle around it to get to the bodies that had truly gotten his attention.

There were three that stood out to him. One seemed to have had its head cut off and then messily sewn back on. There was something in its mouth, he could tell by how the jaw was resting. Another had a gaping hole in its chest with something broken off in it. The third had been messily burned.

The formerly headless body and the burned one were covered with a fine layer of what proved to be soil, and Caleb was exceptionally proud of himself for managing to determine that much before he had to beat a hasty retreat and curl up in the opposite corner of the room to try and breathe past the nausea and the buzzing in his head.

 _Think. Breathe. Focus._ There were details here to consider. Those three bodies hadn’t been as much a wrack and ruin as the zombies. In fact, beyond being pale as death, they were scarcely decayed despite the gruesome nature of their injuries. The zombies were the preparation for more delicate work to be done on those three bodies, and the work being done on those three bodies was…for what?

He’d only seen half the room. Caleb took several shallow breaths, trying to get air while trying desperately not to smell anything, and lifted his head to see what else he might have missed.

It didn’t take much of a search. A good chunk of the floor's other half was taken up by a magic circle painted all in red tinted black, on the opposite side of the room from the door. Then Caleb crawled closer, and saw that it wasn’t paint and it wasn’t directly on the floor. The circle had been  _etched_ , and the grooves formed by those etchings had been filled and stained with dried blood, layered on top of each other, new and old. The laboratory was spotlessly clean but for that circle.

The ritual. That was the only conclusion he could force his dizzily spinning mind to come to. Here was where Maxwell tried to puzzle out the ritual whenever he didn’t have a pet wizard to take a crack at Lucien’s encryptions for him.

Maxwell Virago was studying vampires. Did the ritual have something to do with that?

The zombies weren’t quieting down, and he was starting to think in circles. He knew in his bones that he’d hit on something important here, but just behind them was a wall, and he’d batter his thoughts to bits on it if he let himself.

And even if he intended to do just that, now was not the place for it. He didn’t know if sound could escape whatever enchantment was on this place, and he didn’t want to be given cause to find out.

Caleb got shakily to his feet and hurried for the door. Once he was back in the main house, it was all he could do not to betray himself by taking great, noisy lungfuls of comparatively clean air. Instead, Caleb managed to force himself to stay focused long enough to recast the alarm and the arcane lock on the door, remembering at the last second to exclude Maxwell from their effects. It wouldn’t do for the vampire to trigger spells that he himself was supposed to have cast, after all.

Then, job done and discoveries to consider, Caleb made his slow and cautious way back upstairs. The sight of a couple of zombies nearly scared him half to death before he remembered he was still invisible and tiptoed his way silently past them. It was an immeasurable relief to finally collapse back into his chair at the library and stare sightlessly up at the ceiling and breathe and breathe and breathe until he stopped shaking quite so bad.

Eventually, it fully sank in that he had not found Mollymauk down there.

He hadn't really appreciated until that moment just how much he'd been pinning his hopes on finding Mollymauk behind that door. 

He didn't even have enough energy left to cast another spell to locate creatures - he'd used up his burst of arcane recovery to make sure he could leave the lab in a hurry if it came to it. But for the first time, Caleb couldn't quite help but consider what it might mean for them if he cast that spell and sensed  _nothing_.

He supposed he'd find out tomorrow.

Caleb didn’t get much more work done on the translation that afternoon. Instead, he poked around for more notes on vampires and wrote down details of what he’d seen to give to Jester tomorrow. After everything, he wasn’t sure he trusted even his mind to have kept it all straight.

His mind was even less quiet than usual by the time they all went to sleep that night with fresh holes in their necks and less blood in their bodies. When Caleb slept, he was mired in dark, choking nightmares.


	8. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester tracks her target. Caleb gets a rude awakening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG AUTHOR'S WARNING - This is the chapter that I felt left this fic necessitating the "Domestic Violence" tag, on top of the tags for Emotional, Psychological, and Physical Abuse that have been more prevalent throughout the story. They are way more prevalent here. 
> 
> Especially if you have past experience with abusive authority figures, please proceed with care. If you find that this chapter is too much for you, the following chapter should provide more than enough context to keep proceeding with the story without missing anything substantial. No hard feelings from me. Just duck out when you see things switch back to Caleb's point of view. Take care of yourself, all.

Jester didn’t know if Maxwell Virago came down to the cemetery again that night. He’d figured out she was there watching him last time, after all, and so she didn’t want to risk getting chased by wolves again. Instead, she’d made her way up to the rooftops and waited for sunset once more, crouching in the shadow a chimney in the hopes that might be enough to let her hide from any vampire bats.

Once the sun set, she yet again heard wolves howling in the distance, their cries echoing from what seemed to be every direction around town. Not long after that, she heard Frumpkin hiss from his hiding place on the other side of the roof, signaling her that he could smell the vampires approaching.

Jester risked peeking up and, sure enough, caught just a glimpse of a bat outlined against the moon before it swooped back towards the mansion and was lost to shadow once more.

“Time to spy.”

She leaped from rooftop to rooftop, creeping around town from on high, and with a bird’s-eye view got a better sense of exactly how dangerous things were at night. Wolves and undead formed a perimeter around the town. She could see the wolves pacing around the outskirts for lack of any prey to chase down. She could also see gently swaying, moaning figures and rattling forms in alleyways and shadows that could only be zombies and skeletons. “Cleaning crew”, Caleb had called them, and here was apparently where they went for their night shift.

There was only one figure walking the streets. Jester risked casting a spell of clairvoyance to confirm that it was not Maxwell, but the young vampire he had raised up the night before. He was still dressed in the clothes he’d been buried in, and moved with a visibly feral, predatory sort of hunger.

Jester wondered why he didn’t just go into a house and start pulling people from their beds. She'd heard enough people mention it that it really seemed like something vampires just plain could not do, but it was an odd weakness to consider. She was still glad to see for herself that he was unable, because then she couldn’t have stood by and watched and everything would have gotten a lot more complicated, but it still seemed noteworthy. Instead, he seemed to be prowling the streets looking for people who were stupid enough to be out after dark, and so far it seemed that Jester was the only one who qualified. Occasionally he beat his fist against a door hard enough to splinter it, but he always moved on without going inside.

The wolves and other, lesser undead seemed to pay him no mind, which said to Jester that they were still summoned by Maxwell even if the stronger vampire was nowhere to be seen. Had he left so early, merely escorting his creation into town to prowl and potentially wreak havoc? Or was he hiding out somewhere nearby to keep an eye on things, warded from her magics?

Jester was trying not to get overambitious, much as she ached to burn all the monsters down to save her friends. If she could just find where the spawn hid out during the day, she would consider tonight a victory. Then she could go to Caleb, hear anything new he’d found since they’d last met, and hopefully use that information to figure out how exactly one went about killing a vampire.

And she could ask him if these were some of the undead from the house, because if they were and if they came down here to stalk the town at night, that potentially gave her a good opportunity to get in when the time was right.

The spawn was losing patience at being thwarted for some reason by doors. As Jester watched him from the house across the street, he finished the job of kicking one in and tried to call over a zombie, presumably to go inside and drag someone out for him. It took a few moments of haranguing before it listened. She wondered if the commands the spawn was trying to give were having to pass through his master first. But in the end, the corpse moved to obey the corpse, shambling surprisingly quickly for the house.

Well, that was just great.

To make matters worse, the zombie wasn’t stopped by whatever strange barrier kept the vampire out. Jester bit her lip, wavering traitorously for a moment, but she knew she only had minutes if that before the screaming started and  _this wasn’t right_.

“Frumpkin,” she whispered, getting ready to move. “Go make a distraction. But please don’t die.”

The cat growled down at the scene below, then went to work, hopping from the roof to the windowsill and down to the ground before racing for the vampire. Jester hung back just long enough to cast a disguise spell on herself before she followed, lowering herself hastily down with her grappling hook and racing towards the monster.

Frumpkin lunged with a yowl, sinking his teeth and claws into the spawn’s leg and wrapping around like a ginger limpet. The monster howled in shock and pain before reaching down to try to claw and tear at the cat, but Jester fired a sacred flame at his back before he could get a grip. “Hey jerkface!” she called, pulling out her holy symbol and holding it before her. When she spoke again, she imbued her voice with all the power of her divine might.  _“Shoo!”_

Frumpkin darted aside as the vampire turned to face her just in time for the Traveler’s light to radiate forth from her symbol. It washed over him like the tide, and Jester felt her will collide with his, locked in struggle…but only briefly.

She hadn’t had a great day, and she finally had an excuse to take that out on  _something_.

As her will overcame his, as she put the fear of her god into him, the spawn shrieked in terror and cast about desperately for the best route to get away from her. He finally picked a direction, seemingly at random, and raced down the street away from her with surprising swiftness.

“Follow him!” Jester hissed to Frumpkin. “Just not if it looks like you’re gonna die!”

Frumpkin set off after the vampire at a dash, while Jester hurried into the house.

She could hear the zombie further inside, beating and scratching at a door, and she could hear people screaming on the other side of that door. Jester drew her axe and hurried towards the tumult, and buried her blade in the back of the undead’s skull without any further preamble as soon as it was within reach. It staggered, slumped against the door, before struggling to rise and shambling around to face her. Jester waited for it to sort itself out enough to do so, waited until she saw the empty whites of its eyes, and fired a sacred flame into its face. It tried to claw at her, she dodged easily, and scorched it again. Two more castings proved to be enough to light it like the world’s ugliest torch, and then it was the zombie’s turn to scream as it burned and shriveled and died all over again, crumbling to foul-smelling ash.

Jester watched it burn, panting just a little. Once it was well and truly nothing but dust, she kicked grumpily at the pile before knocking politely on the scratched and damaged door.

“Hello? I killed the zombie for you.”

She’d been hearing voices on the other side of the door, talking in a panic to each other, but at the sound of her voice they all went quiet in a hurry. Jester waited, but they didn’t start up again, and no one came out to see her.

“Oh, right,” she said. “You probably think I’m just another vampire and I’m trying to trick you. That’s cool. I’m not, but, like, I see where you might get that idea.” When they didn’t seem to be buying her entirely true story, she added for good measure: “I’m a healer, and a pretty great one, so if anybody’s hurt in there, I’m just saying…”

It was no good, and Jester was starting to think she should probably go and try to meet up with Frumpkin. So she heaved a tired sigh and turned away from the door. “Okay, well, have a good night.”

Then she raced out the door and looked around for the cat. When her little ginger friend didn’t appear to meet her, Jester set off running in the direction she’d seen them both go. Her path took her back towards the cemetery, which was alarming, but she didn’t hear the sound of howls of pursuit, so she could only hope the wolves had ranged far enough by now to not have noticed her. A couple of skeletons did, apparently roused by the sight of movement, but they offered even less resistance than the vampire spawn had when she turned them aside with the Traveler’s light. She saw them crumble to dust out of the corner of her eye, but didn't let that slow her down. 

Frumpkin came barreling out of the underbrush to meet her as Jester neared the graveyard. The cat was yowling up a storm, loud enough that Jester feared he might bring the wolves right to them. “Okay, okay, okay,” she whispered, as soothingly as she could. “I’m here. Show me.”

Frumpkin led her right through the graveyard, cutting a path straight across and around the plots both freshly turned and laying open. Jester saw a smaller hill rising up to meet them, all but lost in the night time shadows until you got close enough. It wasn’t anywhere near as tall as the hill upon which Maxwell’s house stood, it barely qualified as a hillock. But when Frumpkin led Jester around to the side of it that faced furthest away from the graveyard, when he went pawing through the long grass there, Jester was able to see a hole dug in the dirt there, like a large burrow belonging to some vicious animal.

Which, she realized, was exactly what it was. A nest in the ground was kind of a step down from a mansion on the hill, to say the least, but maybe that was how all vampires started.

“He’s in there?” she asked, glancing down at Frumpkin. Frumpkin answered by apparently trying to dig the burrow even wider, growling louder than she’d thought him capable of.

“Okay, okay,” Jester said, reaching down to drag the cat away. “That’s good. But maybe hush up so he doesn’t hear us!”

Frumpkin’s growls grew a little quieter, but his yellow eyes remained fixed on the hole. Jester sat them both down heavily in the grass and tried to consider their options.

The obvious choice, of course, was to go in there right now and murder the vampire spawn. She’d scared it into fleeing before. Caleb had seemed fairly certain that it wasn’t as strong as its creator. Maybe both those facts together meant that Jester could take it on.

If she didn’t kill it now, it could tell Maxwell what had happened tomorrow, if the older vampire bothered to come down again. Jester hadn’t looked like herself, but the fact that  _someone_  had successfully terrorized it could still be news worth passing along. Then Maxwell could find her like he’d found all of them and Jester was way less sure that she could take him on alone.

On the other hand, if she  _failed_  to kill the vampire spawn after making the attempt, he’d still survive to tell Maxwell that someone was in town who could do things way more dangerous than just holding up a holy symbol and praying.

On the third hand, he was trying to eat people and Jester was really, really tired of not getting to beat something up on behalf of her friends. This thing was undead. Undead were supposed to be scared of her. How hard could it be?

On the  _fourth_  hand, she was supposed to trust Caleb with this, with helping her find a way to strike down these monsters and make sure they stayed dead. If he thought a special way needed to be found, shouldn’t she trust him? If they couldn’t trust one another in this, they were all truly lost.

Jester lifted Frumpkin to her face and muffled a frustrated scream in the soft fur of his belly. Frumpkin bore the offense with feline dignity, but struggled out of her arms as soon as she loosened her grip.

“I guess maybe he could just run away tomorrow,” she mumbled, as she got to her feet. “And then that’d be fine anyway.”

One more day. She could wait one more day. Caleb had seemed so sure and confident, she didn’t want to undermine him or risk putting him in more danger. Surely by tomorrow he would have found a way to fight back, and Jester would put his plan into action.

And if he hadn’t, she would put  _her_  plan into action instead.

*  *  *

Caleb woke early the next morning, dimly aware that someone was softly calling his name. He grumbled in protest, half-rolling over while being mindful not to wake Nott, and finally forced his eyes open.

The first thing he saw was Maxwell standing over him, staring down at him with impassively.

“Caleb,” the vampire murmured as Caleb went tense as a wire, his hands itching to call up his magic. “Don’t fight me, Caleb. Just come downstairs with me.  _Quietly_ , now. You don’t want to wake the others, do you?”

He’d never been on the wrong side of Mollymauk’s Devil’s Tongue before, but Caleb still dimly recognized the charm as it wove around him to be a similar breed. The spell was fast and subtle and  _simple_  enough against his sleep-addled mind that by the time he could have thought to resist, he had already forgotten why he should want to.

Caleb felt himself sit up and saw his hands move to carefully ease Nott off his legs. She mumbled in sleepy protest, grabbing clumsily for his him, but he moved to stroke her hair and she soon fell back asleep.

His voice had deserted him entirely. He knew he should be worried about that, but somehow he just…wasn’t. It was like the part of his mind that normally screamed at him to be scared and suspicious had been walled off, and all he could hear was a distant pounding on the inside of his skull.

It wasn’t such a bad feeling, really. What did he have to be scared of? The inside of his head felt warm and muffled and safe. All he had to do was follow Maxwell downstairs. That was simple. Even he couldn’t screw it up.

So Caleb got up, and when Maxwell headed for the door Caleb followed him. He followed Maxwell downstairs, and saw through the occasional glimpse through heavy curtains that it was still dark outside. The sky was only just turning pink over the horizon. That seemed strange, but he couldn’t remember why.

They got down to the entrance hall, and Maxwell stood before him with his back to the front doors, and Caleb stood in front of Maxwell and placidly wondered what he was supposed to do now.

Then the spell over him ended, as quickly as it had ensnared him, and Caleb felt panic rising thick and hot in his throat like bile.

The fear must have shown plain on his face even before Caleb stumbled back a step, suddenly shaking. Maxwell’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, but in the midst of his terror Caleb was hyperfocused on the vampire as his mind cast desperately about for any possible avenue of escape. He noticed every minute detail. “ _Caleb_ ,” Maxwell said, stern as a schoolteacher, a tone of voice Caleb knew in his bones and dreaded just as deeply. He took a step closer and he seemed to loom so huge and dark and terrible in the already-shadowed entrance hall. “Give me your hand, Caleb. Don’t make this difficult. Just give me your hand. I’m trying to be reasonable about this, and you’re making it  _very difficult_.”

He felt the same spell trying to weave itself around him again, trying to compel him to obey. This time, with fear sharpening his wits, Caleb was able to catch it in time and, with a wrenching effort of will, throw off the enchantment without his mind being touched.

Just as he had that night when this had all begun, however, he wondered if he should still pretend he’d succumbed. Every instinct he had was screaming that this monster was going to _hurt him_ , but he shouldn’t have any reason to. Caleb had dispelled the alarms around the lab, he hadn’t disturbed anything inside, there was no  _reason_  Maxwell should think he’d done anything wrong and if Caleb held back he might only give his captor more reason for suspicion.

“Wh-Why?” he asked, even as he slowly extended a shaking hand. Maxwell took it in both of his with a remarkable gentleness, staring down at Caleb’s singed, scorched glove as if it held the secrets of the universe.

“We’re friends, aren’t we, Caleb?” Maxwell asked, sounding tired and sad, as he traced the lines of Caleb’s palm through the wool. Caleb remembered when Molly would sometimes do the same thing when he got it into his head to pretend to read Caleb’s fortune, and the thought of his missing friend straightened his spine a little bit, helped him keep his gaze up. “You know I have only your best interests at heart, right?”

“Of course,” Caleb said, reciting the mantra he’d already heard from his other friends so many times. “You’ve looked after us, kept us safe, been more than generous. Of course we are friends.”

He could feel the vampire’s coldness through his glove and wrappings, and Caleb reminded himself forcibly that Maxwell  _couldn’t_  hurt him, not without risking the enchantment he believed Caleb to be under. That was just how such magic  _worked_. This was all just to scare him, even if he didn’t understand why.

“You trust me, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” This was also an easy lie to tell, just because of how often he’d heard it repeated in just a couple of days. “With my life, I…”

Maxwell grabbed one of Caleb’s fingers and  _twisted_. Caleb heard the  _snap_  before he properly felt it – then pain  _exploded_  in his hand, lancing up his arm and making his mind go white with the shock of it.

“Shh,” Maxwell whispered, clapping a hand over Caleb’s mouth as he cried out, as tears of panic and pain blurred his vision. “Shh, Caleb. You don’t want to wake the others, do you? Stop it, stop screaming, hush now. You don’t want the others to see this nasty business, right? I’d hate to have to tell them how untrustworthy you’ve been acting.”

“I d-don’t,” Caleb stammered desperately, as Maxwell took his hand away. “I don’t  _understand_ , I…” And then Maxwell had to muffle him again as he broke a second finger and Caleb  _screamed_. The pain was so bad he almost lost his footing, almost slumped to his knees, but the vampire heaved him back up and held him upright with the same easy, slightly frustrated air he might have spared for a sack of difficult laundry.

“I’ll have to stitch your mouth shut if you don’t stop making such a racket,” Maxwell said, easy and conversational and even cheerful, as his fingers traced one of Caleb’s unbroken ones. “Perhaps that’s the only way you’ll learn to listen for a change. But then you’d hardly be able to cast any magic at all. You’d be useless to me, and I can’t exactly let useless people stay in my house, Caleb. I don’t like useless, layabout houseguests. You understand that, right?”

Caleb nodded frantically. He would have agreed that the moon was made of cheese, in that moment.

“Good, good,” Maxwell murmured, tilting Caleb’s head up so that their gazes met. It was almost a relief not to be transfixed by the sight of two of his fingers bending in impossible directions. “You’re listening to me, we’re communicating. That makes me happy, Caleb. I really do want us to be friends. But we can’t do that if you don’t trust me, and I can tell you don’t trust me, because you went snooping around my house not long ago when you were  _supposed_  to be working.”

Caleb gritted his teeth, all but choking on the pain, but he was able to speak without screaming again at last. “I wasn’t,” he gasped, bracing himself for what he knew was coming next. “I swear it. I…”

This time he clapped a hand over his mouth himself as Maxwell broke a third finger. “I had a talk with Nott, yesterday,” he said, as Caleb bit down on the fingers of his good hand until they nearly bled, as the pain left him wheezing and dizzy and sick. “She said you were poking around where you shouldn’t have been. Oh, she used much kinder words than  _that_. She said you were only curious to learn from me, and too shy to ask. But we both know that wasn’t it, don’t we, Caleb? We know that you’re a greedy little thief, looking to make off with the hard-earned possessions of your magical betters.”

Even as white spots danced in front of his vision, even as his mind was full of rushing, roaring static and his arm burned hot and bright with pain, some cold, logical center of Caleb Widogast hastily put some pieces together as he struggled to catch his breath.

Nott knew about one such outing. If she’d somehow found out about Caleb getting into Maxwell’s lab, he had to believe this monster would have opened with that.

Which meant Maxwell didn’t have any damning evidence against him yet.

He had to keep it that way, no matter the cost.

“She was telling the truth,” Caleb stammered, truly desperate for reasons he prayed the monster could not see. “I was only curious, I didn’t want to disturb you, I-I thought stepping away for a few moments would not matter. I, I was thoughtless and I was wrong but I never…”

Maxwell broke a fourth finger. Caleb realized dimly through the shock and the pain that he had bitten his fingers to bleeding at some point. He couldn’t even catch his breath enough to scream. “Is that really all it was, Caleb? Are you certain you aren’t lying to me right now? If you want to tell me the truth, now is your last chance before I lose my patience. I truly can’t stand liars, Caleb. People who abuse my trust are  _disgusting_ to me.”

Caleb stared up at Maxwell through the tears because it was easier than looking at the ruin of his hand. There was no hiding that he was terrified and in pain and crying like a child but he hoped to any god that was listening that the eye contact would make him seem like a man with nothing to hide.

“Please don’t hurt Nott,” was all he said in reply. He was not too proud to beg, after all. “It, it was m-my idea, to go walking. She didn’t know until I cast the spell, I swear it, and, and then she told me to stop…”

Maxwell broke his thumb, and this time he let Caleb collapse to his knees, sobbing so hard he could barely breathe. It was as much from shock as pain, though the pain was agonizing in its own right. It was bad enough that just the faint jarring he felt from hitting the floor was suddenly too much to bear. Caleb had just enough time to lean over and brace himself on his good hand before he was emptying the contents of his stomach all over the carpet.

His mind was racing in unsteady circles. This shouldn’t have happened.  _Why_  had this happened? Maxwell had to know that even if Caleb had been under an enchantment, it would  _never_  have withstood such torture. He had never heard even a whisper of a spell that could compel someone in such flagrant defiance of basic self-preservation.

So Maxwell had to know that Caleb wasn’t under his power anymore, but if that was the case, why wasn’t he making a move to reapply it? Or else why wasn’t Caleb  _dead?_

He didn’t know. It seemed now that there was so much he didn’t know. Before a few days ago he never would have imagined there was a spell that could bury someone alive and send him far away, and yet that was exactly what had been done to Mollymauk. Perhaps Maxwell’s thrall, once put in place, really was that absolute.

Perhaps it didn’t matter. Even if now had been the time to fight, he was in no fit state to. The monster had not stitched his mouth shut, but Caleb realized with a lurching thrill of horror that most of his spells were still useless to him with one maimed hand. The moment he fully processed the reality of his situation, he nearly threw up again.

Maxwell knelt down before him, his face a mask of carefully calculated pity. Caleb heard himself whimper as he cradled his damaged hand to his chest in a transparently useless attempt to protect it from further damage.

“Oh, Caleb,” said the vampire, soft and sad, reaching for him. Caleb flinched back and averted his gaze, screwing his eyes shut in anticipation of some fresh torture as useless sobs continued to shake his shoulders.

The vampire did not seize his other hand. He just stroked his cold fingers tenderly through Caleb’s hair instead, before letting them trail lower to brush some of the tears from his face. Caleb no longer knew if that was better or worse.

“It’s all right, Caleb,” he heard Maxwell murmur in such a gentle voice. “I see now that you’re sorry, and I forgive you. We can make a fresh start from here. Why, in no time at all, I imagine you’ll forget this whole unpleasant business ever happened…”

Maxwell kept saying something, after that, but his words slowly grew muffled and indistinct, like he was at the other end of a long hallway or like Caleb was falling down a deep, dark pit. The world was going white around him, fading out in patches, and Caleb had just enough sense left to panic anew and think  _no no please not again_ …

And that was his last thought before Caleb Widogast blinked, and found himself sitting on the floor of the mansion’s entrance hall.

A scant second later, pain lanced through him, sharp and hot, throbbing up his arm. He cried out in agony, hunching in on himself, staring in desperate confusion down at his hand.

What he saw there made him whimper, suddenly dizzy with horror.  _His fingers_. What had happened to his fingers? Every one on his left hand was broken, twisted in sickeningly wrong angles.

“Caleb?” he heard a voice say, and Caleb looked up wildly and gasped in fright to see Maxwell standing over him, staring down at him in concern. When he saw Caleb staring up at him, however, the vampire smiled. “Good, that’s good. I was afraid I’d lost you, for a moment. It’s all right, you’re safe now.”

“S-Safe?” he stammered, unable to raise his voice above a choked whisper, finding it hard to breathe.

“Of course you shouldn’t have sneaked out last night, but…those brutes down in the village also shouldn’t have hurt you like this. It’s not your fault, Caleb, not really. None of us had any way to know that they were harboring such violent intentions towards us. But I’ll deal with it, Caleb, never you fear.”

He bent down and kissed Caleb’s forehead and Caleb was too mired in confusion and pain and bone-deep exhaustion even to flinch. “I…” he tried, staring up at the vampire. “I don’t…”

“Shh. You don’t have to talk just yet. I’ll go and wake the others, so they can see to your hand.” The vampire smiled down at him, before turning away and walking briskly back up the stairs, hopefully heading for the room where Beau and Fjord and Nott slept on. He left Caleb kneeling on the floor and cradling the ruin of his hand and trying to remember just how he’d come to be here and wondering what the  _hell_  he was supposed to do now.

He didn’t even realize it when trying to grasp a hold of the present left him sliding back into the past instead. When thoughts of Maxwell Virago turned to thoughts of Trent Ikithon, and it was Astrid and Eodwulf he was going to wake upstairs.

_Caleb couldn’t remember what had happened but he had obviously been punished for something. And this was a merciful punishment, really. As Master Ikithon was always keen to remind them, one false step in a real combat situation could mean death or dishonor._

_Of course he sometimes had to leave them with painful reminders of their failures, so that those failures would not compact and worsen. That was right and sensible. The three of them were strong, after all, and so they could heal from anything._

_It was his own fault that he couldn’t remember what had led him to this. He did not fail often, it should have been easy to recall, but he couldn’t and so the slight must have been terrible. Perhaps Astrid would take pity on him and explain, perhaps Eodwulf would be allowed to splint his fingers. He was best at it. Caleb had tried to set his own shoulder the last time he’d dislocated it and done a poor job on top of making himself pass out._

_There were not many skills that eluded him and so the fact that he was the worst of the three at first aid was a sore point. But it_ hurt _, his hand hurt so much, and without two good hands he could not do magic and if he could not do magic he was useless to his teacher and to the empire so maybe Master Ikithon would take pity and allow Eodwulf to splint his fingers, just to make sure it was done right and Caleb was not broken._

_Of course, he would still have to go through his training today, but that was right, that was proper. The enemies of the empire would not rest just because Caleb was hurt, after all._

_Master Ikithon returned quickly, with Astrid and Eodwulf and…someone else with them. One of the maids? A new student? He didn’t know and didn’t care to ask. Dimly, he heard his friends talking in raised voices, sounding upset and even panicked. That was silly of them. Kind, but silly (and of course the two often went hand-in-hand). Their lessons were harsh. This was not the first time one of them had gotten hurt, probably not even the worst of it._

_The strangeness continued when it was_ Astrid _who knelt down, apparently intending to see to his hand, and Eodwulf who held him steady. She was not as bad at bandaging and splinting as Eodwulf was, but still, was this really the time for training?_

_Maybe it was, maybe that was why he’d been hurt, as a lesson to motivate Astrid to do better. It wouldn’t have been the first time for that, either._

_Caleb could feel himself talking, could dimly hear the sound of his voice but he couldn’t make out the words he was saying. They must have been terrible nonsense, however, because Astrid was looking at him so_ sadly _and then suddenly pain exploded across Caleb’s face and…_

…and when his vision cleared, Nott was standing beside Beau, panting raggedly, massaging her hand. There were tears in her eyes.

Caleb lifted his good hand to his cheek, which was throbbing in time with his broken fingers but nowhere near as fiercely. He felt fresh tears on his face as he did so.

“You went away,” Nott whispered. “Please don’t go away, Caleb.”

He swallowed, and nodded. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and tried to mean it.

“Wherever he was, maybe you should have let him stay there,” Beau said, offering Caleb a wan smile. He had a feeling she knew exactly where his mind had been. He was grateful she didn’t say. “Because this is going to suck. You know that, right?”

He managed another nod.

“Okay.” Beau took a deep breath. “Fjord, you’ve got him, right?”

Fjord was sitting with Caleb’s back to his chest. At Beau’s words, he wrapped his arms around Caleb, tight enough to be reassuring and steadying but not enough to hurt. “Got him. On three?”

“On three,” Beau said. “One, two…”

She hadn’t been exaggerating. The next little while was terrible even by the standards of the past few days. Nott held his good hand and Fjord held him in place and Beau gritted her teeth and worked his fingers back into place as quickly and as gently as she could but it was a fresh hell and agony and at least no one told him to be quiet about enduring it.

 _Jester_ , Caleb caught himself thinking, whenever he could think. His mind reflexively grabbed for the one point of light in this entire nightmare.  _Jester can fix this. Jester will come today and she will_ fix this _._

He could only hope she’d been sensible and stayed safe last night, as he himself apparently hadn’t.


	9. Cry for Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester helps shed some light on recent events. Caleb gets his breath back enough to consider the future.

“I really don’t like this place,” Jester whispered to Frumpkin, as they made their way back up the hill. “It’s like…something in the air. Something  _bad_. Maybe it’s because of the vampires. Everything just feels weird and wrong.”

Frumpkin glanced back at her and let out a long, sad meow of agreement. As he did so, she saw that his eyes were pure blue again. Caleb had been checking in a lot this morning. That had worried Jester enough that she’d sneaked out of the inn through the window again, lest she get drawn into conjuring up more food and water and wasting more spells. Not that she minded feeding people who didn’t have a lot to go around, but if she needed her magic for Caleb instead…well, it was hardly a choice.

Movement in the distance caught Jester’s eye as she sneaked her way up the hill. She glanced down and saw their cart, and today it was rolling away from town and towards the main road. “What is even so interesting down there?” Jester wondered, shading her eyes to watch it go for a moment. Since there was no one to answer her but an increasingly agitated cat, however, she soon carried on.

It was with a sigh of relief that she flopped down into her usual spot behind the red bush in the shadow of the dead tree. Then, after Jester glanced down and saw Frumpkin looking back at her with blue eyes once more, she wasted no further time in pulling out her wire.

“Good morning, Caleb.”

 _“Jester.”_ Just the sound of his voice made Jester’s heart seize with dread. That one word was enough to let her hear that Caleb sounded…wrong.  _“Are you in the same place as yesterday?”_

“Y-Yeah, but I thought you said…”

A hole in space opened up in front of her, a doorway looking into the library that Caleb was standing in front of. He stumbled out to join her and immediately collapsed to his knees. Jester gasped as she looked him over, reaching out in an attempt to steady him before he fell over entirely. “Caleb, what  _happened_  to you?!”

His skin was pale, tinged with grey. His eyes looked sunken and bruised. There was a bandage on his neck that hadn’t been there yesterday, and he was cradling one hand to his chest as though it pained him. She could feel him shaking where she held him by the shoulders – whether from exhaustion, fear, or both, it was impossible to say.

She saw him swallow, then swallow again before he finally managed to answer. “I d-don’t know,” Caleb whispered. His eyes were big and round and glassy. He was obviously having trouble focusing on her. “Jester, I don’t  _know_.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said, trying not to panic because Caleb looked like he’d gone past panicking. She ducked her head to try and catch his gaze, to try and smile for him. “It’s okay. I’m gonna fix you. I’m gonna make it better. Just…just  _breathe_ , Caleb, please? For me?”

Caleb managed to smile back for her, weak and shaky as it was, and she could tell he was making an effort to try and steady his breathing. He still got tense as a wire when she reached for the bandage on his neck, but she was eventually able to coax him into letting her tear it off, holding his hand so he could squeeze hers’ past the pain. The sight revealed beneath the gauze made her nauseous and upset – two ragged holes in his throat that looked very much like they could have been made by fangs. Each one was small but  _horribly_  deep, and marred with dried blood.

He wasn't even healing right anymore. Some asshole was slowly devouring her friend like he was a giant doughnut and Jester was starting to understand how Caleb could ever get mad enough to set someone’s head on fire. 

For now, she rested her fingers just above the wound. She murmured a few more reassurances to Caleb when he sucked in a breath and tried to pull away in apparent anticipation of more pain, and she whispered a healing word. Her fingers glowed with soft white light that flowed from her to him, and as Jester watched the torn and bruised skin knitted itself back together and Caleb started to breathe a little easier.

“There we go,” she said, rubbing his back as he slumped a little from the loss of tension. “All better. I mean, not all better, but one thing better, and that’s good, right? Jeez, you’re so  _pale_ , let me try something…”

She caught his gaze again, and made sure he held it long enough to let her be sure he was really seeing her. Then Jester rested her hands carefully on either side of his head and  _hated_  Maxwell Virago more than she thought she’d ever hated anyone when Caleb still flinched without apparently realizing it. She knew that she and Caleb didn’t always understand each other, even after all this time, but Caleb had been getting  _really good_  about letting his friends touch him and it seemed like that had all been undone and then some in a matter of days.

Jester meant to prove worthy of the trust he was offering her now, however, and cast a spell of restoration.

Unfortunately, it only took her a few moments to realize that fixing this particular damage was beyond her. The spell let her look inside Caleb, past the surface to see the truth of whatever internal damage was plaguing him. She could see if poison was running through his veins or if magic had stolen his sight or if other bad things were keeping him from being  _fixed_  and  _okay_.

But she could also see that none of those things was the problem this time. The spark of Caleb’s life force was just so very, very  _dim_. The problem wasn’t that something had been inflicted on him, the problem was that so much was being  _lost_ , so much life was being drained from him and exhaustion was keeping him from healing. She wasn’t strong enough to put back what had been taken or lift that weariness from his bones.

“Sorry,” Jester whispered abashedly, as the spell ended and she pulled her hands away. She only realized then that the effort of seeing even that much had left her sweating faintly.

Caleb caught one of her hands and held it for a moment, pressing his brow against their joined fingers. “Don’t be,” he said softly. “Thank you for trying.”

Jester managed to smile for him, but only for a moment, because then her wits caught up with her enough to make her glance at the hand that Caleb wasn’t using, and then she felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. “Oh my  _god_!” she cried, reaching for his damaged hand. “What in the  _actual, almighty heck_  did he do to you?!” Even as Caleb tried to hide the injury from her sight, he wasn’t fast enough to keep her from seeing that every finger on his left hand had been bandaged and splinted.

“I told you,” he mumbled. “I don’t  _know_. I don’t  _remember_. I woke up on the floor of the main hall and all my fingers were broken.”

“But he did something to you,” Jester said flatly. She could think of no other explanation.

Caleb winced. “I think so,” he said. “Even beyond the, ah…obvious.”

“It’s okay, Caleb. Let me see your hand. I’ve saved up all my spells for you, so I can fix up some broken bones. Easy as anything,” she said, hoping she wasn’t lying.

He looked tempted, he visibly wavered for a moment, but this was  _Caleb_ , and so of course he tried to talk himself out of a good thing. “I, I was going to ask, Jester, but…then I started thinking. He  _knows_  none of us can heal so if I turn up this evening with a fixed hand, he’s going to suspect something and he might suspect  _you_. I-I don’t think he’s even considered you coming for us, or else he wouldn’t have made the others think you were dead…”

“The others think I’m  _what?!”_

He winced, and so did she. “Sorry, but…but  _what_? Since when? How?”

“S-Since the night this all began, I think. As he was taking us to this place.”

“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?!”

She felt bad for yelling, but this morning had been one shock after another so far. Something so important had been taken from her, her friends had been taken from her in a way she hadn’t even contemplated. This seemed like something she should have known.

Caleb looked sorry, but he was also starting to tremble again. “I, I know, I’m sorry, I’m  _sorry_ , it’s just, I mean…”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Jester said desperately, trying to gentle her voice as much as she could when her heart still felt cold with shock. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be sorry, it’s not your fault." She reached out to rub his back, his shoulder. “Frumpkin, help me out here, pretty please?”

Frumpkin had been pacing in agitated circles around them, apparently being kept at bay by Caleb’s almost palpable desire not to be touched. Jester’s command was enough to overcome the distance, however. The cat carefully braced his paws on Caleb’s knee, enough to let him lift himself up and nuzzle against his human’s face. Caleb laughed, though it sounded sort of like a sob at first, and nuzzled against his cat for a moment before he finally seemed to find the strength to move his good hand to scratch Frumpkin’s back.

Jester moved to pet the familiar as well, and the two of them spent a quiet moment reorienting themselves in the warmth of Frumpkin’s body and the rhythm of his purrs. Jester took some comfort in seeing Caleb take comfort, and started to appreciate all over again just how great it was to have a cat around when you needed to calm down.

“Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur,” she cooed. “Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr.”

Caleb chuckled a little bit, and her heart felt eased. “What is that?”

“Just a little rhyme my mom taught me once. I don’t even really remember where.”

“it is very nice. And good. And true.”

Frumpkin chirped in agreement, and curled up to rest his body heavily against Caleb’s leg and his chin on the man’s knee, still purring strongly.

“I know I should have told you earlier,” Caleb said, keeping his gaze on his familiar, smiling fondly and a little distantly. “It’s just, it’s…it’s been a  _lot_ , you know?” This time his laugh was a little hysterical, but at least he didn’t flinch when Jester patted him on the shoulder, so she counted that as progress.

“I know,” she said. “It’s…it’s been a  _lot_. But it’s not your fault. It’s his. Everything is his fault. We’re just doin’ our best, you know?”

Caleb closed his eyes, drew in a shuddering breath, and nodded. “I hope so.”

“I  _know_  so. Now come on, let me see your hand.”

“But…”

Jester cut him off, gently but firmly. “All you’ve gotta do is keep the bandages on. It’s not like he’s gonna check, right? It’s like you said, he doesn’t think anybody’s around to heal it for you, so he won’t think it’s healed if it’s still all bandaged up.”

Caleb nodded slowly, hesitantly. “That…that is a very good point, yes.”

“Then when it’s time to kill him you just gotta tear the bandages off and be like ‘surprise, jerkface!’ And then you’ve got, like, an advantage. See?”

He smiled shakily. “I see.” And when she held out her hands again, he offered her his damaged one without any further hesitation. She still had to unwrap the bandages and set aside the splints to test how effective her work was, but Jester laid them aside for later.

Then she cradled Caleb’s hand carefully in hers’, closed her eyes, and sent up a prayer to the Traveler. She even prayed in Infernal, for good measure. She’d found that sometimes that was the best way to get his attention.

Caleb reported that the pain had eased significantly once she had finished, but she followed it up with two more standard cure spells for good measure.

“How do they feel now?”

“Sore, mostly.”

“Can you wiggle them or something?”

“…can you do it for me?”

“Baby.” But she carefully flexed his fingers for him, easing them in towards his palm and back out again. He winced, but he didn’t scream or cry, and his fingers bent like they were supposed to. “Okay, now maybe try to cast a spell?”

She recognized the movements for a dancing light spell. They were a little clumsier than she was used to seeing, a touch more hesitant. But on the second attempt, four bright golden orbs of light still appeared at his call as they should have done. Their light only highlighted the overwhelming relief on Caleb’s face. “A little stiff,” he said, as he dismissed the magic. “But this will suffice. This will more than suffice. I think you might have just saved my life, Jester.”

Jester wasn’t sure whether to be touched or worried that the situation was apparently so dire. She settled for both. “I’ll do it again when I come back tomorrow. It should help a little more. But it’s not good to have too much healing magic used on you in one day. You get, like…spiritually clogged, or something. I’ve never really understood how it works. But that’s what the Traveler told me.”

“I believe you,” Caleb said, staring down at his own hand, curling and uncurling his own fingers as though just being able to do so was the most miraculous thing in the world. Then: “I trust you.”

Jester had to swallow past a sudden lump in her throat. Of course she  _knew_  he trusted her. Why wouldn’t he? And she trusted him. She’d proved that last night – even if he hadn’t been there to see it, Frumpkin had probably told him already.

But somehow, hearing the words said aloud in that moment meant a great deal.

She helped him bandage his hands back up, and even shortened the splints a little to give the illusion that they were still there without, hopefully, impeding his freedom of movement more than it already was. The work bought Jester enough time to let her marshal enough courage to ask: “Can I try something else?”

“What sort of something else?”

“You can’t remember how your hand got hurt, and…and the others can’t remember that I’m alive. So maybe the bloodsucker made you forget what happened like he made them forget. And I think I might know a way you can remember.”

Caleb’s eyes went wide and he sucked in a breath. Jester immediately felt foolish for asking. “I mean, nevermind, you’ve already had people messing with your head today, of course you wouldn’t want me to…”

“Do it,” Caleb said, and she’d rarely heard him sound as sure of himself as he did in that moment. “Please.”

That was…an odd reaction, to say the least, but Jester couldn’t quite put her finger on how or why and knew better than to ask. “Okay,” she said, reaching out to rest her hands on either side of his face once more. “Take a deep breath.”

She did the same, and murmured a prayer to remove a curse.

 _This_  time the magic came easily, behaved exactly how she’d expected – better than she’d hoped, even, because Jester hadn’t even been sure if this would work at all. But it was like she could see a bright web in Caleb’s head, a network of emotion and memory interconnecting and feeding off each other. She knew that if she looked closer, she might be able to see details of his recollections, of his past, and it would have been a lie to say that Jester wasn’t a little curious.

She held back, however, because that was what friends and good people in general did, and focused her will on one dark, smudged spot right  _there_ , just a little while back. It was like lighting a torch and waving it in the dark, chasing away the shadows, and the memory grew clearer and clearer and clearer until…

Jester reeled back a little as Caleb shoved her forcibly out of his head. It only took one look at him to realize that he hadn’t done so entirely consciously. Even if he had, the glimpse Jester had seen meant that she hardly blamed him.

Caleb had his head in his hands, his fingers clenched tight in his hair, and he was rocking back and forth a little, breathing like he was about to hyperventilate. When Frumpkin wriggled his way into his wizard’s lap, Caleb immediately grabbed him up and buried his face in the cat’s fur and that seemed to help his breathing a little bit. She thought she heard him let out a broken sob. She was willing to pretend that she hadn't. 

Jester let him have a moment or two, sitting quietly and trying to look anywhere but at Caleb in case she made him uncomfortable. Finally, when it sounded like he’d loosened his hold on Frumpkin a little bit, she risked her voice once more.

“So, um…you remember how your hand got hurt now, huh?”

She glanced at Caleb. He was staring straight ahead at nothing very much, petting Frumpkin anxiously. His eyes didn’t look glassy, but they did look…haunted. It made a chill race up Jester’s spine to see it, and she couldn’t help but reach out to squeeze his shoulder in what she hoped was still a gesture of reassurance.

“ _Ja_ ,” said Caleb. “Yes. I remember.”

After a second, he reached up and patted her hand in a gesture of acknowledgement, and Jester knew that counted for a lot for both of them right there and then.

It was enough that she risked pushing a little further. “Caleb, I…I don’t think it’s safe for you in there anymore. I mean, it was  _never_  safe, but he didn’t  _hurt_  you like this before. He’s gotta be suspicious, right? Otherwise why would he do this  _now_?”

She felt her heart constricting as she wondered if this was her fault, if Maxwell’s thrall had seen too much of her last night and reported back, if Maxwell had figured out that Caleb had an ally and if only Jester had been brave enough to attack then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

“He is suspicious,” Caleb said. “But not  _exactly_  as he should be. I made mistakes when I was poking about, enough to draw his ire, but those were  _my_  mistakes. I…I can throw him off, Jester. I can buy us more time, throw him off your scent. I think if he knew you were here, he would have said so. Tried to get information from me about you. Jester, I-I don’t think it has even occurred to him that you would try to save us. He is not that sort of man. He has magic powerful enough to make Mollymauk disappear but  _he does not know how familiars work_.”

Jester did not remotely know the significance of that dichotomy, but to Caleb, it seemed to mean the world. He reached out to her this time, gathering her hand between both of his and holding tight, looking directly into her eyes, as intent and earnest as she had ever seen him. “You are our ace in the sleeve. You are how we’re going to get out of this. I…I knew that before, but I wasn’t as  _certain_ of it as I am now. If we can make it so he does not see you coming, he will not stand a chance.”

And now his eyes were so, so bright, and when Jester saw that, she felt herself starting to hope again.

“ _We’re_  how we’re going to get out of this!” she said, covering his hands with her free one. “We’re still a team, Caleb! And a pretty good one, too.”

She giggled, and he laughed, and Frumpkin butted his head against the tangle of their hands and it was a good moment, a moment when they all breathed a little easier. Though Caleb looked more somber when he finally settled back, he also looked more settled. He looked just as resolved as she felt.

“Just because he is not suspicious now does not mean that can’t change,” he said, carrying on as if the moment had not happened. “He might start looking. If he makes contact with his creation before we can dispatch him, if he knows that someone is out there causing vampires trouble, he might start looking and with the right sort of magic, he  _will_  see you, Jester. Unless…”

She saw him waver, saw the old doubts creep back behind his eyes, but then Caleb shook his head as if to dispatch a cloud of troublesome flies and pressed his fingers into Frumpkin’s fur for a moment.

Then he reached up towards his neck and drew an amulet out from under his shirt.

“Ooh,” Jester breathed, as Caleb held it out to her. She took it without hesitation, holding it up to the light to admire the beautiful facets and intricate carvings that marked it. “This is really pretty, Caleb. What is it?”

“A loan,” said Caleb flatly. “When this is over, I will be needing it back. The  _second_  this is over, ideally.”

“Okay, okay. Sheesh.” Jester slipped it on and tucked it beneath her blouse. “The very second Maxwell is dead for reals, you can have it back. But seriously, what is it?”

“As long as you have that on, he won’t be able to find you with magic.  _Any_  sort of magic that can, ah, detect people from far away or, or see them when they are hiding will be blind to you.”

“You’ve had this the whole time?! Caleb, I don’t think even Pumat had stuff this cool. Where did you get it?”

She saw him swallow anxiously. “That is a very long story. But…I will tell it to you. Later. Once I have that back.”

“…okay,” Jester said softly, as gently as she could. “You don’t have to, you know,” she added, seeing how nervous he was at the prospect.

“I know,” Caleb said, and after a moment he smiled weakly at her. “But you…it’s a story you will deserve to know, Jester. When all of this is done.”

“Right,” Jester said, and then there were no words to encompass how  _much_ she was feeling, so she leaned forward and hugged her friend tight and close and maybe, just for a moment, safe.

One second passed, then two, then three, before Caleb’s arms wrapped around her in turn and he patted her on the back in a way that was so very awkward and yet so very  _him_  that Jester felt a little safer, too.

His eyes were a little too bright, a little shiny when he pulled away, but Caleb blinked the tears back stubbornly and Jester pretended not to notice.

“Okay,” Caleb said. “Okay, okay, okay.” He clapped his hands together, then nodded resolutely. “Now, here is everything else I have for you.”

He unholstered one of his books, opened it, and pulled out several loose, noticeably newer pages that he passed over to her. “This is everything I have found so far, about the house and about vampires. The past couple of days have been…terrible in  _so_  many ways.” He chuckled bitterly, but there was something almost fierce in his smile for a moment. “But  _instructional_  in very many others. If you think tonight is the time to take a test run, Jester, then I have plenty for you to test.”

Jester shuffled hastily through the pages, trying to read them as quickly as she’d seen Caleb read in the past. He gave her a summation anyway. “Vampires share the traditional undead weaknesses to radiant energy. For all their power and swagger, they are still only walking corpses, after all. Sunlight is also a bane to them, though I still don’t know how much. Considering the bricked windows, probably a fairly severe one. They can survive and recover from most any sort of harm quite quickly, but if they are hurt enough, they are forced to turn into mist and retreat. When they recover, it must be in a recreation of a grave that serves them as a resting place. While they are resting and recovering, they are vulnerable. A stake through the heart is effective. I do not quite know how or why, but it is supposed to subdue them in a way little else can. From there, ah, removing the head, or fire, those might be something to try.”

“So, make them turn into mist and run away, find them when they are hiding, then try staking through the heart, cutting off their head, or setting them on fire,” Jester said, ticking off what seemed to be the most relevant points on her fingers. “Is that right?”

“As far as I have been able to gather, yes. But Virago’s research on his own kind was quite extensive. The answer is in those pages  _somewhere_.”

 _And if something happens to him, that means if I have the pages I’ll still know what to do_. Jester felt her stomach lurch to realize that those were the unspoken words behind Caleb’s assurances, but she felt equally certain that she was reading him right.

More to the point, she was determined to make sure it absolutely would not come to that.

“Tonight is the night,” she said. “I’m gonna kill that baby vampire and then I’m gonna tell you exactly how we did it and then we’re gonna make Max Virago regret the day he ever climbed out of his grave.” 

She held out her closed fist and, when Caleb stared at her blankly, she prompted him: “You’re supposed to fistbump me.”

He did so.

“Heck yeah.”

_“Ich bin dabei.”_

“And I have a gift to loan to you!” Jester declared grandly, reaching into a pocket of her skirt and removing her pearl of power. “Because you look like you didn’t sleep a wink, so you probably need all the magic you can get.”

She passed it over to him and Caleb accepted, visibly grateful. “It’s that obvious, then?” he asked, placing the pearl carefully in an inner pocket of his coat.

“You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit. More than usual. It will be a minor miracle if I can recover enough arcane energies to get back inside.”

“So…you really don’t have any magic?”

“Not as much as I did yesterday, no. You need proper rest for that.”

“…are you  _sure_  you don’t want me to just go ahead and rescue you right now?”

He considered it for a second, and Jester let herself hope, but then Caleb shook his head. “I am certain. But thank you.”

“Okay.” She felt her tail droop a little from disappointment. “I’m gonna rescue you anyway if you can’t get back inside. Why aren't you sleeping, anyway? Bad dreams?"

He hesitated visibly before answering, but finally managed a short nod. "Very bad."

Jester reached out to hold his hand. "If you're still having bad dreams after we save everyone, I will sing you a lullaby!"

Caleb blushed fiercely and his gaze slid away from her. He ran a hand anxiously through his hair. "I don't think that will..."

"I don't just know  _fun_ songs! I know pretty ones, too. My mom knew all the songs in the world! So I know most of them." Momentarily overcome with emotion once more, Jester leaned forward to kiss his forehead lightly, sealing the promise that followed after it. "When this is all over, I will sing to you. A nice song, to help you sleep again."

He was still blushing when she pulled away, but he also looked genuinely touched, and he inclined his head to her solemnly. "Thank you, Jester."

Something in his eyes, something in the sincerity and warmth she saw there for her, made Jester realize that she was blushing, too. She laughed a little unsteadily, scratching a hand over one of her horns. "But in the meantime, I should probably head back and get ready to kill a vampire.”

“Only if you think it is safe,” he said, and tried to hand Frumpkin back to her. This was made difficult when Frumpkin tried to dig his claws into the arm of Caleb’s coat, growling in protest, but Caleb reluctantly pried the cat off, exchanged a stern look with him, and saw him deposited in Jester’s arms once more.

“I’ll  _make_  it safe,” Jester declared adamantly, cuddling Frumpkin to her chest in a way she hoped was reassuring. “And then I’ll come back tomorrow and tell you all about how I did it. Promise.”

“I believe you,” Caleb said, and he sounded so tired but he still sounded hopeful and Jester was proud of them both for that. He got to his feet and turned away from her. She heard him take a deep breath. “Until tomorrow, Jester.”

“Yeah. Good luck, Caleb.”

Caleb spoke the magic words and a door opened in space before him, leading back to the library. He stepped through, and had just enough time to look back at her and smile before he was gone again.

Only after she had been left in silence for several long seconds, broken only by Frumpkin’s fretful purring, did Jester allow herself to let out a long, exhausted sigh.

“He’ll be okay,” she whispered to the cat, to herself. “He doesn’t have to do anything dangerous today. All he’s gotta do is read books. He’ll be okay.”

But as she walked back to the inn, she remembered the exhaustion and the fear in Caleb’s bruised, sunken eyes. She remembered how this monster had him so scared that he’d been willing to suffer with a broken hand rather than risk his wroth further.

She wanted to believe that Caleb would be okay, but in the harsh light of day with no one but a cat who obviously didn’t believe what she was saying, Jester had to admit to herself that she was no longer quite so sure.

But that was all the more reason to  _make_  the words true by any means necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've seen a few people wondering what Caleb and Jester are capable of at the moment, so now seems a good time to reiterate that they are Level 8, and have 4th level spells available. Sadly that means no Greater Restoration for Jester, and Lesser doesn't do the job of recovering max HP or removing exhaustion.


	10. Taking a Stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester fights a vampire. Frumpkin helps.

Jester made it back to the inn without issue. She left Frumpkin with instructions to wake her in the evening and slept through the rest of the day, meaning to recover as much magic as she could before night fell.

When the cat finally woke her up by smacking her in the face a couple of times before settling in to gnaw on one of her horns, Jester grumbled blearily and opened her eyes to see the red and ruddy rays of sunset streaming in through her window.

She ate the last of the group’s spare rations, then pulled on her boots and headed downstairs.

“Going hunting again?” Norma asked from behind the bar.

Jester let out an embarrassingly loud “eek!” of shock as she whirled around, axe held defensively at the ready. Only then did she fully process who was standing there, leaning against the bar and smiling at her wryly.

“Don’t _do_ that!” Jester huffed, smoothing down her skirt and replacing her axe on her belt. “Jeez! I’m already super on edge – don’t you know there’s _vampires_ wandering around?”

“Kinda got that idea, yes. I also know you’ve been going out after ‘em these past couple of nights.”

“Oh, really? I wouldn’t have guessed from the way you _never let me in_.”

Norma had the decency to look a little abashed. “Sometimes, when people are stupid enough to go out after dark, the bloodsucker takes them over and uses ‘em to lure out others. So it’s not safe to open the doors at night. Not even to a friendly face. I thought that’d be your fate that first night.”

Jester folded her arms and let out her best snort of derision. “Yeah, well, I’m not gonna lure _anyone_ outside, I’m gonna go right up to those vampires and show ‘em what for.”

The innkeeper chuckled, and looked Jester over with an approving eye. “You know what? After you’ve been in and out and always coming and going from that mansion, I believe you. He’d have had you do _something_ to us by now if you were in his power. Something more than serving up breakfast every morning. That says to me that you’ve been tough enough to hold out, or at least smart enough to know how to keep your head down. That’s more than any other stranger that’s come to town has been able to say for coming up on three years now.”

“…thanks,” Jester said, a touch begrudgingly. It was hard to stay angry after praise like that.

“Which is why I’ve got a gift for you.”

“Ooh!” She couldn’t help but perk up at that. “What is it? I _love_ presents!”

Norma reached down under the bar to rummage around, then pulled out a hand axe.

But Jester saw as she took it that this wasn’t any ordinary, cheap axe. The handle was some deep, black wood inscribed with arcane runes, and the blade gleamed silver with an unnatural brightness. She could _feel_ faint echoes of magic power thrumming through her fingers as she curled them around the haft of the weapon, and Jester knew without a doubt that this was better than her axe by a mile.

“You’ve had this the whole time?!” she gasped. “Why is everybody keeping all this good shit from me?!”

Norma chuckled as she watched Jester take a few experimental swipes with it. “It belonged to my brother,” she said, and Jester froze. “He used to be one of the best hunters in town. Could go out and bring back any deer he set his eyes on. Once landed himself a full-sized bear – everybody in this inn ate like hogs for three days. I don’t know where he came across that blade, but…it always served him well. Always saw him home safe. Or...almost always.”

Jester looked up in time to see a shadowed look pass over Norma’s face, a haunted note in her eyes. It reminded her very, very much of how Caleb had looked that morning.

But then Norma noticed her looking, and shook it off with the practiced air of one who had never really allowed herself to grieve. “I’m not gonna ask you to kill him with it,” she said, and now there was steel in her voice as hard and bright as in her brother’s axe. “You don’t owe me anything like that – I know you’re only doing this to save your people, and you’ve more than payed your way at my inn. But if it helps…if you can make him hurt with it…”

“I will,” Jester said solemnly. “I’ll get in a really good hit for you. For both of you. Thank you, Norma.”

“Thank _you_ , Jester,” Norma said, and she looked for just a moment like a weight of years had been lifted from her shoulders. The older woman nodded over Jester’s shoulder, towards the door. “But I shouldn’t keep you any longer. Whatever you’re gonna do tonight, you’d better get a move on – sun’ll be setting soon.”

“Right,” Jester said, turning away and starting for the door with Frumpkin on her heels. She paused with her hand on the knob and looked back over her shoulder. “Are you gonna let me in tonight?”

Norma had already set to work polishing mugs. “I’ll be up late tonight,” she said. “Might be if I heard a knock, I wouldn’t ignore it.”

“Cool.” Jester knew that was the best she could expect, and probably more than Norma would have offered anyone else.

So, with a magical axe in her hand and a cat on her heels and a spring in her step, Jester left the Happy Weaver Inn and headed briskly for the cemetery, hopefully for the last time.

When she arrived, the first thing Jester did was search among the trees bordering the place for a likely looking branch. Once she found one, she snapped it off, then broke it into two jagged pieces that would probably suffice as stakes. Those she hung on her belt, along with a torch she fished out of the haversack, all for the sake of having them at the ready the second the chance presented itself.

But those weren’t the main objectives of her search.   

The cemetery was surrounded by a broken, tumbledown stone wall. It had probably been a nicer, neater creation before Maxwell Virago had come to town and pulled down the temple that had once adjoined the graveyard. Jester hadn’t paid it much mind on the first couple of visits, finding better places to hide behind trees and under bushes. But as she’d been making her plans for this evening, those scattered piles of moss-covered stone had kept reoccurring to her.

The spell she had in mind wasn’t the best way to eavesdrop on someone, but it was not a half bad way to set an ambush. So when Jester arrived at the graveyard just as the sky was starting to go dark, she cast around hurriedly for a likely looking spot. Upon finding one, she dashed over to it and laid herself down atop it, making some hasty estimates in her head.

Yes, this should do nicely.

“Frumpkin,” Jester said, glancing up to where the cat sat patiently awaiting orders. “Start yelling as soon as you’re sure he’s all by himself. I won’t be able to hear that well in here.”

Frumpkin meowed in assent, then turned and moved deeper among the tombstones, until she lost sight of him in the deepening darkness. Jester had to hope that a cat would be harder to spot than a tiefling. She had to hope that Frumpkin could stay hidden and stay alive.

If this didn’t work, everything might well be lost.

Jester closed her eyes, murmured a few words, and dug her fingers into the cracked and grooved stone. There was a momentary resistance, until she suddenly found herself able to press her fingers deeper and deeper, digging down into the rock, parting it like mud or thick water and making a place for herself inside it. She melded herself into the stone, wrapping herself in it like the a thick blanket that smelled of moss and decay, until all was dark and heavy and close around her and Jester knew she was as hidden as she was capable of being. Then she settled down to wait.

It was a mildly claustrophobic and not entirely pleasant experience, but she just kept breathing and tried not to think about how she shouldn’t have been able to get any air at all.

It might have been minutes or it might have been hours. She really didn’t know how Caleb managed to have such a ridiculously specific sense of time. At last, Jester heard the voices start speaking out of nowhere. They were far too muffled for her to hear any words, but if all went well the words shouldn’t matter.

Finally, silence fell once more. Jester caught herself counting seconds, until her concentration was broken by an unholy feline racket, as Frumpkin yowled and screamed for all his little lungs were worth.

Jester sprang up out of the stone as hard as her legs could carry her, bringing her axe to bear as she splashed up and back into the world. She hadn’t anticipated how _close_ the monster would be, how Frumpkin had led him right to her, but the spawn was _right_ in front of her as she landed and she looked up to find him already swinging his hand around for a punch. Jester managed to duck her head and bring up her shield just in time, so that the attack clipped off the edge of her shield and hit her in one horn instead of breaking her jaw.

The impact was still enough to jar her all over, making it feel like every bone in her body was rattling so that she stumbled, badly. She felt the spawn lunge for her, heard the sound of teeth meeting flesh, and it took her addled mind a second to realize that it wasn’t her flesh, and that wasn’t her screaming in pain.

She heard an impact against a soft body, heard Frumpkin cry out in pain and thud to the unforgiving ground some distance away.

Rage bloomed hot and bright in Jester’s heart, scorching the stars from her eyes and strengthening her grip on axe and magic.

_“Don’t kick cats, you motherfucker!”_

So great was her rage that it poured forth from her as bright white light, and Jester felt it coalesce at her back into a guardian of faith. She didn’t have to look back and see what form it had taken – all that mattered here and now was that it had a weapon and was ready to attack at her will.

The vampire spawn was just starting to recover its wits from Frumpkin’s attack and turned back to her just in time to see the guardian taking shape behind her. That made it hesitate for another crucial second, fear plain on its face as it was confronted with raw divine force made manifest. Jester took the chance before her without further hesitation, swinging her axe once, twice, to draw two crossed gouges across her foe’s chest that oozed black blood.  

Jester grinned in vicious triumph to see the wounds she’d inflicted already, and didn’t realize until too late that the vampire had grabbed ahold of the wrist that held the axe. With a yelp, she was yanked forward and spun around and this time there was no Frumpkin to save her as the monster drove its fangs into her neck.

 _Oh,_ Jester thought dizzily. _So this is what it’s like_.

She had never felt such coldness.

It _hurt_ , of course it did, but the spreading chill was the worst of it by far – the sense that the monster was _taking_ and leaving nothing behind, drawing warmth and life from her in huge, hungry gulps that left her almost too weak to breathe.

 _This is what Caleb has been living through. This is what_ everyone _has felt._

Red, raw anger took hold within her once more, so hot that it turned cold. Jester gritted her teeth and reached back with arms that felt heavy as lead to grab the vampire’s head.

 _“I am really sorry this happened to you!”_ she screamed in Infernal, as spikes and spines of ice jutted out from her and into him. All at once the pain was gone and she could _breathe_ again, the world regained its color and she regained her wits.

The very next thing Jester did was direct the guardian to attack, and it moved to obey her will without hesitation, stabbing straight through her to get to it. Jester felt nothing. The vampire _screamed_ , and it’s pain gave her a second to act, hefting her axe and whirling around with it in a ferocious chop.

She overestimated the height slightly, and buried the blade in the vampire’s skull rather than its neck.

“Oops,” Jester said, wincing at the rather grisly sounds that were produced by the vampire’s renewed efforts to somehow wrench itself free and claw at her at the same time.

She felt bloody gouges being dug into her arm, but refused to surrender her weapon. Instead, Jester planted her foot on its chest and _heaved_ and with the sound of meat being butchered, the vampire stumbled back and so did she, her grip still firmly around her newly freed axe.

“You’re a really, _really_ noisy guy,” Jester grumbled, slightly out of breath. She wished she could have cast a globe of silence to spare herself its awful screeching _racket_ , but it was hard to cast spells when you couldn’t hear your own voice.

The vampire was slavering and snarling at her, blood and worse oozing down the side of its face and blood staining its fangs. It charged in and Jester swung her axe for another attack, but it took the blow on the arm and used its other to punch her in the stomach hard enough that Jester had the wind forced out of her. She stumbled back, clutching at her stomach, but before the vampire could follow up she saw a bright light flash across her vision and the guardian came to her aid.

That spell had saved her life so far, and when she looked up, the vampire seemed to be eyeing up avenues of retreat. Jester gritted her teeth. “No way,” she growled, and raised her holy symbols to call up spirit guardians to join the fun. Dozens of bright pinpricks flashed to life around her, flying this way and that, phasing through the vampire and slicing him with holy energy. It threw back its head and screamed, before lashing out at her in an animal frenzy, punches and claws blurring almost too fast for her to see. Some connected, almost knocking her senseless, but being surrounded by the light of her god with her goal so close at hand was enough to keep Jester standing strong. She retaliated by lunging forward just as the guardian did, chopping with her axe as hard as she could.

But even then, she only got halfway through its neck. The force of the blow was enough to send it sprawling to the ground, with an enormous chunk taken out of its neck, but it was still rolling around on the ground in agony instead of _dying_.

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Jester huffed. She could see that it was trying to regenerate the damage, too, trying to regrow muscle and tissue and sinew, but as her summoned spirits continued to dart throughout the space around them, darting through it as well, their radiant energy seemed to stop it healing. That would make things easier.

She planted a foot on its chest and raised her axe high for the finishing blow, but it grabbed her leg and _yanked_ and Jester hit the ground flat on her back, her axe spinning away from her across the ground. The monster reared up and grabbed for her shoulder and head with clawed, bloody hands and Jester fired off a holding spell just as it leaned in and opened its mouth to bite

Which kept her safe from having her throat ripped out, but still left her with a vampire, frozen in place in the act of looming over her and grabbing her with inhuman strength, snarling right in her face with bloody teeth. She was able to pry its fingers looser just as her vision started to go grey at the edges, then drove her knee up into its chest to knock it back over, where it rocked slightly. Jester sat, panting desperately and fumbling for her axe where it had slipped from her grasp. When she couldn’t find it, she made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and grabbed for the torch off her belt.

Chopping a head off was turning out to be harder than she’d thought. Maybe fire would save her from having more vampire blood splattering all over her.

She lit the torch just as the vampire shook off the spell. It lunged for her and she jabbed the torch out at its face just as her guardian took another attack. The gleaming sword took it in the chest. The torch caught it in the face and set its hair on fire.

The vampire howled and wailed, tearing at the burning strands and only succeeding in scorching its fingers. It stumbled to its feet and staggered back and Jester took advantage of the opportunity to swipe the torch across its clothes, setting them alight as well. She could smell the scent of scorched, melting flesh. It was _nauseating_ , and she pressed a hand over her mouth as she struggled back to her feet. The unholy tumult of its agonized screeching felt like a nail-file being dug across her teeth.

It was almost a relief when the vampire dropped out of sight, and Jester’s first thought was a slightly disbelieving _I won?_ But then she saw the flames continuing to lick up from the hole in the ground the monster had actually fallen into – it had tripped and stumbled into an open grave the villagers had been too tired and hopeless to fill back in.

Jester limped over to stare down into the grave, watching as the vampire tried to struggle up and out of it while also trying to put itself out at the same time. Chopping off heads was messy and difficult, setting them on fire took a long time and smelled awful. She didn’t know how staking it through the heart was going to be any better, but perhaps it was worth a shot. She cast a spell to create water right above its head. Ten gallons of it splashed down into the grave, extinguishing the flames all at once with a loud hiss and sending up thick plumes of white smoke that still smelled of scorched hair. Some of the splash caught Jester, and she was glad of it, because that did the job of extinguishing her torch for her and maybe even washing some of the blood off her face.

She gripped a stake firmly, then swung herself over the edge of the grave and down into it, landing hard on the vampire’s chest. Jester was horrified to see that, down here, after being out of range of her and her spirit guardians for barely a handful of seconds, it had already made a great deal of progress in healing the wounds on its neck. The cuts to its chest were barely a hair’s width, now.

But as the bright lights of her summoned spirits poured into the grave after her, they illuminated the vampire in harsh relief and lit her target up as bright as the sun in the sky.

Jester stabbed down with the stake just as the vampire lashed out with its claws and she felt the makeshift weapon puncturing skin, piercing muscle, and finally the heart gave way before her strength. In the last second before her foe was able to tear her throat out, the vampire spawn collapsed into dust with an aborted cry of loss, leaving Jester to collapse back into the bottom of the grave as it vanished out from under her.

And there she sat for a long moment, intermittently gasping for breath and choking on dust as it settled around her. One by one, the little lights that were still swirling around her winked out like dying stars, leaving her alone in the dark and the silence with the reality of what had just happened slowly dawning on her.

“I…I won,” Jester whispered. “I won, I won, I _did it!_ ” With a whoop and a laugh, she leaped to her feet, punching the air, calling out for all the world to hear. “I did it! I killed a vampire, _I did it!_ Yahoo!” She jumped up and down, laughing fit to burst, feeling like she could soar. She didn’t care if Maxwell heard her, let him come, let him have a go. She’d kill him, too. She knew she could, now, she knew how it was done.

At last, she settled down enough to focus on clambering up and out of the grave. It wasn’t terribly difficult, the lip of the hole was only a bit higher than her head, though her wounded arms shook with the effort of hauling herself over the edge and back onto blessedly solid ground. As she flopped down onto her back, it also sank in for Jester that she _was_ alone right now…and she shouldn’t have been.

She sat up hastily, feeling her heart seize with dread, casting desperately around the area, squinting to try and see through shadows. Jester cupped her hands around her mouth, trying to swallow down panic. If she’d gotten Caleb’s cat killed again after all this time, after they’d come so far, he’d be so mad at her. “Frumpkin?! Frumpkin! Here, kitty!”

After what felt like a minor eternity, a small, anxious, pained mewl sounded from just to her right, and Jester looked over to see Frumpkin limping carefully towards her from the shadow of a gravestone. He looked tired and hurt and generally miserably unhappy, but he wasn’t _dust_ and that meant he’d be okay.

“Hey,” Jester cooed, carefully guiding the cat up and into her lap, where he slumped heavily against her, panting. “Hey, Frumpkin. Who’s a good boy? It’s you! You are just the bestest boy, do you know why? Because you saved my life, and because you saved my life, I did it, Frumpkin! I killed a vampire! Caleb’s gonna be _so happy_ when we see him tomorrow.”

Frumpkin’s purr was fainter than usual, but she could tell he was putting his heart into it. He let her pet him while they both recovered themselves, sitting there on the ground amidst the open, empty graves and the freshly turned new ones, under the moon and the stars and the hope of victory.

“We’re gonna kill Maxwell tomorrow, Frumpkin,” Jester finally decided, resolute. “When I tell Caleb how easy this was, if he tries to say we should keep waiting, I’m gonna say nuh-uh! We don’t have to be scared anymore, because now we know how to kill vampires and Maxwell will never see me coming anyway. Caleb and me and you, we’re gonna get everybody back tomorrow. It’s gonna be a really good day.”

Frumpkin purred a little louder and licked her fingers, squeezing his eyes shut and seeming to smile even more than cats usually did.

Jester went hunting for the axe, and found it stuck in a bush. Then she made a makeshift sling for the cat out of her shield, and carried him carefully as she set off back towards the inn. A couple of zombies tried to stop her. She barely had to spare them a glance, just hold out her holy symbol and tell them to fuck off.

Norma let her in this time, and when she saw the look on Jester’s face, she fixed them both cups of warm milk and insisted Jester tell the story all over again. Jester was happy to do so.


	11. Undertow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxwell decides that he and Caleb need to have a talk about expectations. Maxwell also decides that Caleb needs a bath. Caleb gets a choice about neither of these things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also known as "the chapter that almost didn't get posted on time because Microsoft is a motherfucker". 
> 
> BIG AUTHOR'S NOTE WARNING: This chapter contains a lengthy scene of sexual assault/abuse on top of physical torture. If you need to skip it, I will be providing a summary of events in an author's note at the beginning of the next chapter. No hard feelings from me, do what you need to in order to take care of yourself and enjoy the fic safely.

Jester had mentioned to Caleb that vampires could turn into mist, and his own research had borne that out. Whenever Maxwell had seemed to appear out of thin air, it was only because he’d _been_ thin air just a second ago.

Somehow, however, the full and horrifying possibilities of this power didn’t occur to Caleb until he was hard at work early the next morning. His healing fingers were still stiff and clumsy, but he’d been able to manage his comprehend languages spell and his dominant hand was still good. So progress had been slow but steady.

Then suddenly Maxwell Virago was _right there,_ right behind him. Caleb felt the vampire’s presence coalesce a scant second before heavy, cold hands dropped onto his shoulders. When Caleb let out a choked, pathetic sound of panic, clutching at his chest as his heart tried to leap out his mouth, he reflexively tried to rise from his chair and Maxwell pushed him back down and pinned him in his seat without any apparent sign of further effort.

“Caleb,” said Maxwell, drawing out the sound of his name with relish. Caleb could sense the way the vampire was smiling. “My dear friend.”

“ _W-Was?_ ” Caleb stammered, staring straight ahead. Shock and residual panic momentarily cost him his grasp of Common.

“I’m afraid we need to talk.”

“Oh? Ah, um, is, is s-something the matter?” Caleb folded his hands in his lap in a vain attempt to hide their shaking, only just remembering in time to cover his injured one with the good one. Caleb hadn’t done anything suspicious today, hadn’t left the room, hadn’t even seen Nott. Maxwell couldn’t know anything was wrong, he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_.

“I’m afraid so. And you know, I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the others, I really hoped you might have the decency to address this on your own. Maybe that was too much to ask of you when you’re already working so hard for me. So I’ll just bite the bullet for both of us. Caleb...” Maxwell leaned down to murmur in his ear, his cold breath making Caleb shiver. “...you really need a bath.”

Caleb opened his mouth, closed it again, then narrowed his eyes as his mind took an embarrassingly long time to process what had just been said to him. “I...”

Maxwell didn’t give him any further time to understand. Caleb let out a startled cry as he was suddenly dragged up from his chair and to his feet instead. “No excuses,” the vampire said, patting Caleb on the cheek when Caleb stared at him in shock. “It’s not fair to anyone. You’re just making more work for the cleaning staff, and that’s magic _I_ have to spend setting them to extra work. And just think of my books! Some of these are quite old, I can’t risk you damaging them.”

“I don’t...I-I mean...”

This wasn’t fair. Some part of him managed to voice that thought as Maxwell dragged him towards the library door, obviously determined to not give Caleb time to process anything else. And that was easy to do, because Caleb hadn’t properly slept at all again last night, which meant that on top of being dizzy with exhaustion and weak from blood loss, he had almost no magic.

And the monster clearly knew it.

Caleb didn’t know how a bath could be used to torture him and he did not want to find out. Yet his tongue was even clumsier than usual as he was dragged along, through the hallways and down some stairs. He wanted nothing more than to dig in his heels, to claw the vampire’s hands off of him, but he knew that he couldn’t dare try even if it would have had any effect. “I, I do not see how this is a good use of time for either of us. I can clean the books if they are damaged, I have read through _hundreds_ of books without wasting time or coin on a bath first.” He didn’t even see how the household staff entered into this, since the zombies especially made as many messes as they cleaned.

“You won’t have to waste any coin on it now,” Maxwell said cheerfully. “It’s not a waste of my time, either, since I offered. And, if I may say, Caleb, it isn’t a waste of yours’, either. You shouldn’t be working so hard anyway, after you were so badly hurt just yesterday. A rest will do you good, something more than just wandering around with Nott.”

“I have never found baths especially restful.”

“Then I’ll just have to help you learn.”

Caleb felt his stomach lurch as panic hit him like a physical blow. He did try to dig in his heels, then, to slow this down and buy himself a second to _think_ , but it was like he was a leaf being blown along by a hurricane and he was soon forced to stumble onward. “Y-You don’t have to do that,” he said, his voice small and scared. One of his hands was shaking. The other was being held too tight.

At first he thought that Maxwell was simply blind to Caleb’s anxiety and fear. Then the vampire glanced back at him and smiled to show his fangs and Caleb realized that Maxwell could not only tell very easily what he was feeling, but was also enjoying it very much.

“But I want to,” said the monster. And that, it seemed, was that.

Caleb was dragged into a small side room, and Maxwell closed and locked the door behind them. Caleb took in details in a hurry – the room held a couple of wash basins and a couple of large tubs. One of the basins had been cracked and had a chunk taken out of it. One of the tubs had been filled with steaming water.

The walls were stained with dark splatters of old blood. Caleb found himself staring at those for several long seconds, until Maxwell’s voice dragged him out of his thoughts.

“Well?” said the vampire. “Get undressed. I’ll have your clothes cleaned while we’re in here.”

Caleb managed to drag his gaze back to where Maxwell was leaning against the door, watching Caleb with an expectant gaze and an amused smile.

“A-Aren’t you going to…?” Caleb stammered, even though he already knew the answer, feeling humiliation layering on top of terror in a sickening tangle.

“You obviously don’t know how to bathe yourself,” Maxwell said. “I need to make sure you learn how to do it right. To start with, before taking a bath, you’re supposed to get undressed. Or do you need me to show you how to do that, too?”

He reached out for Caleb, but he did it slowly enough that Caleb had time to step back, clutching his coat around himself and shaking his head reflexively. Maxwell chuckled darkly and settled back against the door, folding his arms. “Go on, then.”

Was he going to break more fingers? Was he actually going to stitch Caleb’s mouth shut? Either way, he couldn’t see a way out of this that wouldn’t lead to a worse fate for himself, perhaps even for his friends. Caleb caught his gaze darting about the room, desperately seeking some sort of exit anyway, but there was none. One door, one way out, and it was currently blocked by a vampire. 

He told himself fiercely that it was _stupid_ to be scared of this, after everything else he’d seen and survived in this house. More to the point, it was stupid to let simple _embarrassment_ and _discomfort_ stay his hand from doing what was necessary to survive.

He told himself that over and over again, called himself every awful name he could think of for his cowardice and his idiocy, but the simple act of undressing still proved to be one of the hardest tasks Caleb had weathered so far. It felt like it lasted for a minor eternity, and he was piercingly aware of every second of it, as he shrugged out of his coat and undid his harness and took off his scarf.

After that, he made the mistake of looking up at Maxwell again, and the way the vampire was smiling almost made Caleb break down entirely.

It shouldn’t have helped just to turn his back on the monster, but it did, and Caleb was able to finish stripping out of his clothes without being sick, discarding them in a pile by the side of the tub. At least Maxwell didn’t insist that Caleb take off the bandages, because if he had the game would have truly been up.

After that, he managed to get into the tub without further hesitation, wincing as the scaldingly hot water first touched his skin. The tub was big enough and full enough that the water came to his shoulders while he was sitting down. The water actually smelled a little fragrant, and he wondered why Maxwell was wasting the effort.

If he was stuck in the middle of this farce, he knew he might as well see it through. Caleb cast about for a cloth to scrub himself with, and a shiver went up his spine when he felt Maxwell settle down behind him again.

He had to know he was doing that deliberately, he had to know how much Caleb hated it, and that had to be part of why he enjoyed it so much.

“Let me,” said Maxwell softly, and Caleb felt something poured onto his head before Maxwell started working it into his hair. It smelled sickly sweet, so Caleb had to hope it was soap. The vampire’s fingers were cold and his touch was rough and overall it would have been hellishly uncomfortable even if he’d liked people touching his hair.

Caleb bit his lip, ducked his head, and endured it anyway.

“I bet you have such nice hair, when it’s clean,” he heard Maxwell murmur, as if from very far away. “Yes, I can see it. Such a nice, bright red under all the muck.” And he was ruthless in working out the tangles and knots and wringing out the dirt to try and confirm his suspicions. Every wince Caleb couldn’t bite back felt like a mistake, an admission of weakness, but there was only so much he could control himself when every nerve in his body was already screaming with the effort of staying still.

He didn’t like taking baths, he didn’t like being clean. The fact that Nott had always understood that about him was part of why he valued her as a friend so much. His clothes felt _comfortable_ when they were dirty, they felt like a safe and warm second skin, but they itched and hung wrong on him after a wash. He wasn’t a man who liked looking in the mirror as it was but he especially didn’t like it after a bath because he never recognized the face looking back at him. Caleb had always thought he just looked more like himself with smudges of ink and dirt and soot on his face. He couldn’t remember anymore if that was how he’d been _before_ but it was how he was _now_ and he was content to keep it that way. Even his other friends had finally started to understand that.

So this rough scrubbing felt like nothing so much as being slowly flayed.

“Breathe, Caleb,” Maxwell ordered quietly, and as the voice drew Caleb back to himself he realized that his lungs were screaming for air. He took a deep breath, and then another, trying not to gag on the nauseating scent of overperfurmed soap.

And then suddenly his head was being forced down underwater.

Panic overtook him in a wave, and Caleb opened his mouth reflexively to cry out only to choke on water. He struggled and tried to push up off the floor of the tub, but one hand was clamped in his hair and the other was planted firmly on his back and no matter how he kicked and pushed he was held down as water rushed into his lungs…

Until, just as quickly as it had begun, the attack was over, and Caleb was being hauled up out into open air once more, gasping and retching and coughing up water. He flailed around desperately for something to hold on to and found the edge of the tub, where he clung for dear life as he tried to fully process what had just happened.

“ _Was..._ wh-what happened? What did you...”

“I just needed to get the soap out of your hair!” said Maxwell cheerfully, and despite the warmth of the water Caleb suddenly felt cold down to his bones.

“You...” _You tried to drown me_ , he could have said, but what difference would it have made? Maxwell knew very well what he’d just done and very clearly could not have cared less.

Caleb screwed his eyes shut tight as he felt the vampire’s fingers in his hair again, combing easily through it now that it had been ruthlessly worked free of tangles. “There we go,” the monster breathed. “Much better. Very handsome.” Caleb couldn’t have forced himself to look up had his life depended on it, but the smile he heard in his captor’s voice made him feel sick and dizzy. “Now to see to the rest of you.”

And before Caleb could muster any sort of protest, he felt himself being dragged away from the edge of the tub and held in place with a bruising grip on his shoulder. A cloth was scrubbed over his face, his neck, his shoulders, with that same thoughtless dedication to cleanliness as had been shown his hair.

“It really does pain me to see you taking such poor care of yourself,” he heard Maxwell saying, ignoring or maybe enjoying the way Caleb sputtered and tensed and squirmed in discomfort. “But maybe that’s just part of being human. I wouldn’t know...or perhaps it’s better to say I wouldn’t remember. You’re already so weak, you die so easily, what does it matter whether you take some pride in your appearance or not? But it makes me especially sad where you’re concerned, Caleb. I can see how talented and smart you are, I see how much _more_ you could be, but there’s so much _human_ in you to hold you back.”

As if to prove his point, he forced Caleb’s head under the water again and held him there. On some level, Caleb had been expecting it this time, and managed to get another breath before he went under. He tried to hold on to the hope that it would only be for a moment again, but as his lungs started to scream for air his body took matters into its own hands and tried to break free of the monster’s grasp. Maxwell let him struggle just long enough for it to sink in for Caleb how useless struggling really was before he let the human breathe again.

Caleb was shivering, now, hard enough to make his teeth chatter. What was _happening_ , why was Maxwell doing this to him? He hadn’t done anything suspicious besides going to see Jester, he’d barely spoken to anyone since yesterday. There were grey spots dancing at the edges of his vision as he tried to breathe while feeling the piercing awareness that every breath could be his last. He didn’t even entirely realize it when Maxwell started to wash him again, this time working on an arm.

“Case in point,” Maxwell was saying, his tone mild and undisturbed as if they were merely discussing the weather. “Really, anyone who wanted to could kill you at a moment’s notice, at any time, and then all your potential would be lost to the world. I think that’s a shame, Caleb. I think I could help you be so much stronger. We could make a great team, you and I.”

Caleb swallowed, swallowed again past the rawness in his throat, and stammered: “H-How so?”

“I used to be human. Hard to imagine, I know, but I can assure you my own arcane powers only grew after my transformation. The freedom to experiment, to really _pursue_ knowledge and power, is something that no human can truly understand or take advantage of. I’m quite remarkable even for a vampire, if I do say so myself. I’ve met a few others, in my time, and they all lacked creativity. _Vision_. They never would thought to make the plans I made with Lucien. Do you know what those were yet, Caleb?”

“N-No.”

“Hm. Disappointing,” Maxwell said, and shoved him under again. It didn’t get any easier to bear the third time – the panic, the rush of water and fear, those hit him in some base, instinctive place that previously only fire had ever reached. On some level he was hoping to pass out, to drown and let this _end_ , but his traitorous lungs and limbs kept trying to fight. Even so, when Maxwell pulled him up out of the water again, Caleb was on the verge of passing out and grateful for it.

So of course, the vampire hauled him over to the edge of the tub and, when Caleb held on instinctively, Maxwell put a hand on his back and sent a spark of energy shooting through Caleb’s spine. It was enough to jolt him and his nerves back into life. Sensation and awareness came rushing back and, a second later, he felt his stomach convulse and _heave_ and the end result was Caleb vomiting water pathetically over the edge of the tub before he was dragged back into place like nothing had happened.

“But I suppose I should show you some leniency there,” Maxwell said easily, as he moved on to washing Caleb’s chest and back. Wherever his hands went, they just left more coldness in their wake, leaving Caleb tense and numb and scared. “I might have been a disappointing human, too, before I was given my second chance. I wouldn’t remember. Do you know how vampires are made, Caleb?”

Caleb's mind raced, uncertain whether admitting to investigating or feigning ignorance was more likely to get him drowned again. Maybe Maxwell took pity, maybe he was just enjoying the sound of his own voice, but he carried on without waiting for an answer. “A vampire is made when another vampire drains all the blood from some poor, pathetic human, then gives some of their own in turn. It’s very easy, you know. I must have done it close to half a dozen times so far, and of course I remember the feeling from the other side, as it were. You just...drift away. And then you wake up so much _better_.”

Maxwell’s hands were fully submerged in the water now, moving over Caleb’s lower back and stomach. Caleb wondered dizzily if Maxwell could feel the terrified fluttering there. “Of course, we could be better still. Vampires are remarkable, _superior_ , but we do have our weaknesses – and such frustrating, inconvenient weaknesses they are, too. But who says we can’t improve? Not me. Magic has solved all my problems before. Why not now? I just need the right spell...and maybe the right assistant. Do you trust me, Caleb?”

“Yes,” Caleb heard himself whisper. He knew he would have said anything in that moment for the slightest extra hope of living through this.

“I believe you.” Maxwell sounded so very pleased, like a master who’s dog had finally learned a good trick. “And do you know why I believe you? You’re not hiding from me anymore, Caleb.” He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Caleb and pulled him back against the edge of the tub, against Maxwell’s chest, in a demented parody of an embrace that made Caleb whimper. “You were hiding from me before whenever I checked in on you, and why would you have been hiding if you weren’t doing something wrong? But I see now that you’re willing to let me in, and that means we can make a fresh start.”

The amulet.

He’d known about the amulet from the start. Even if he hadn't known what it  _was_ , he'd known something was there, blocking his attempts to spy. 

And now he knew the amulet was gone and he thought that was a _victory_ for him.

Caleb ducked his head in an attempt to hide the fierce smile that took hold of him. His back was still to Maxwell, so the vampire shouldn’t have seen. _Whatever happens to me, you are going to die_ , he thought at the monster, exultant. _And it will be very soon._ He would have been content to have Trent Ikithon and Maxwell Virago tear one another to pieces fighting over his soul, but the thought of Jester turning the monster to dust while he never saw her coming was infinitely sweeter.

“How were you hiding from me, Caleb?”

“An amulet,” Caleb said, the words coming easily now. He’d rehearsed this conversation many times in his head, though he’d never thought Maxwell would be the man he had it with. “I, I swear I did not mean to. It’s just that I’ve had it for so long, sometimes I forget I am wearing it.”

“Of course. And what did you do with it?”

“I, ah, I buried it. In the yard. I did not wish to risk a trip into town after...” He drew in a shaky breath. “...after what happened.” It was easy to let an echo of shock and fear creep into his voice. All he had to do was remember what had _really_ happened. “I thought this way I could at least, um, spare myself the temptation, and the others.”

“A fine idea. But I would appreciate it if you could dig it up again and let me have a look at it. Those were some very powerful magics you were wearing around your neck. I’m sure I could find a better use for them.”

“Of course, of course. I’m sorry, I did not even think to offer it to you. Stupid of me. I think I could remember where I buried it by...tomorrow, perhaps? It would be sooner, but, but of course locating it magically isn’t exactly an option for me. And I don’t want to take time away from the ritual.”

“That would be fine. Thank you, Caleb.”

The moment of relief, of _certainty_ , only made it worse when Maxwell shoved him underwater again. This time Caleb wasn’t expecting it, and couldn’t even get a breath.

He was pretty sure he did black out this time, or at least it seemed he blinked and then he found himself slumped against the edge of the tub again, hacking up more water, feeling Maxwell’s gaze burning on the back of his neck.

“I do confess that I’m very eager to see this ritual puzzled out,” said Maxwell quietly. “And I know I’m getting a little impatient. But I really am trying not to be. After all, I think Beauregard and Fjord and dear, dear Nott will be helping us test the results, and I know with that in mind you’ll want to take your time to make sure everything works _exactly_ right.”

Caleb’s stomach roiled, and he thought he might have been sick again if only there was anything left to lose. Terror was a rushing roar in his ears, drowning out all thought, all sense, all plans and hope.

He whimpered, cringing in on himself, when Maxwell moved closer and reached out to thread his fingers through Caleb’s clean hair, in the way he always did when he was about to bite. There was still no resisting when Maxwell dragged Caleb’s head up so their eyes met. The room was dim and shadowed, but Maxwell’s red eyes were so very bright, his sharp teeth practically gleaming.

“Don’t worry, though,” the monster murmured. “When the time comes, I’ll make you mine the old, tested, _inefficient_ way. Just to be sure all that bright potential of yours’ won’t be lost to me. I’ll take care of you, Caleb. Just like my sire took care of me. You know that. You trust me, don’t you?”

 _This man is going to kill me,_ Caleb realized. On some level he’d always known it was a possibility, but the red, raw _certainty_ of the truth there and then almost broke him entirely. _Worse than kill me. He will leave my family as nothing but corpses on tables and me as an even greater monster._

 _The only reason he has not done so already is that he is not sufficiently_ bored _yet._

“I understand” he said. Maxwell Virago smiled and let him go.

Caleb was shivering so hard that he hurt. He was so numb from fear that he barely had anything left in him to feel humiliated or uncomfortable as Maxwell finished bathing him. He was too wrapped up in his own thoughts. All of this was horrible enough that he nearly slid into the past once or twice. Fortunately, or perhaps not, he managed to hold on to reality by the skin of his fingernails, by repeating to himself over and over again just how fucked they all were _here_ and _now,_ how stupid and short-sighted and _cowardly_ he’d been _._

 _Fool, fool, fool_.  One of the first things Jester had found out was that they were not the first band of outsiders to be brought to this house, that eventually all the ones before them had disappeared, presumably after a trip down to the basement that they had never come back from.

And Caleb had, what, thought things would be different with them? Just because Maxwell had smiled at his friends with all the benevolence of a farmer regarding some prized cattle in the summer before the winter slaughter came?

 _I thought I had more time. I thought we had more time. A week, by all the fiends in all the hells I thought we could be sure of a_ week _._

But he wasn’t anymore.

More to the point, he’d thought he was dealing with a basically _rational_ man, not a child salivating at the prospect of gaining a new toy and breaking the ones he’d already grown bored of.

Caleb knew better, now, and would not allow himself to forget again.

“There we go!” Maxwell said brightly, clapping his hands and drawing Caleb back to reality. “All clean. You look like a new man already, if I do say so myself. _Very_ handsome. Just a moment while I see to your clothes...”

Caleb stared blankly as Maxwell cast a spell of prestidigitation. He watched dully as the dirt and filth of weeks spiraled up and off his clothes before disappearing in a puff of smoke, leaving only neatness in their wake.

He felt so, _so_ tired. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he’d just slip back into the bath and drown properly this time, and never have to open them again.

Some of those thoughts must have shown on his face, because Maxwell hauled him carefully up and out of the bath. “Get dressed!” he said. “Before you catch a chill. I really am trying to be considerate of your human frailty, but you don’t make it easy for me, Caleb.”

Caleb got dressed obediently, feeling his hands and limbs moving as if they belonged to a stranger. It felt like he was a foot removed from his own eyes. Managing to keep pretending like his damaged hand was entirely useless and broken was about all he was capable of.

Once he was presentable again, the itching _wrongness_ of his clothes serving to keep him tethered to reality, Maxwell walked Caleb back out into the hall. Caleb flinched as the door closed behind them, the sound seeming to echo so loudly in the halls.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to work!” Maxwell said, patting Caleb on the shoulder. “I don’t want to keep you from our plans any longer. I really am expecting good news soon, Caleb – I can’t wait to see what you find for me!”

Caleb managed a nod, mumbled a “ja”, and turned and walked back towards the library. He didn’t know where Maxwell went, and he didn’t have enough left in him to care.

In fact, when he stood before the library door, Caleb found that he didn’t even have the strength or will  to open it. He stared at the doorknob like it would bite him if he reached out, and realized with dull, leaden shame that he was on the verge of tears again.

He was so tired he _hurt_. Jester would hopefully be here in a few hours but the thought of lasting even another few hours alone was suddenly impossible to bear.

He needed _help_. Somehow.

His thoughts turned first to Nott, of course, but then Caleb remembered the _snap_ of his own finger bones and…no. No, he couldn’t. He wasn’t mad, it wasn’t her fault, he’d been telling himself that over and over again. Yet he _knew_ that if he saw her face right now, in the state he was in, he would just keep thinking of the previous morning and he couldn’t stand even the thought of that.

She probably knew he’d been avoiding her. She probably noticed he’d barely been able to look her in the eye since his fingers had been set. And Caleb hated Maxwell Virago _so much_ for pushing them both to that point. The flash of rage was warm and sweet as it rushed through him in a wave. But it was gone just as quickly, leaving him swaying with exhaustion again.

He needed help. Caleb tried to fix that idea in his mind, build on it from there. He needed help and Maxwell had not sent Beau or Fjord away today. He should have been suspicious of that. Should have taken it as a sign that the vampire was growing bored. Stupid. _Stupid_.

Caleb turned away from the library and made his slow, unsteady way outside.

The sunlight was warm and bright as Caleb stepped outside for the first time that day. He found himself just standing and staring up at the sky, losing himself for a blessed moment in the blue. There were only a few scattered clouds – it was so _open_ and _free_ out here that it already felt impossible to believe what he’d just been through, what horrors were still to come. There weren’t even very many undead to mar the view, just a couple of skeletons hacking inefficiently at the hedges.

Beau and Fjord were making rather more progress chopping firewood. Beau set up the logs, Fjord chopped them into bits with his falchion. He overheard them chatting easily back and forth, but couldn’t quite process what they were saying. Caleb just tried to focus on getting over there.

Beau noticed him first as she went for another log. He saw her raise a hand to greet him…and then he saw her frown, and motion to get Fjord’s attention. Fjord looked up, and Caleb saw his friend’s eyes go wide. “Caleb, uh…” He dismissed the falchion and both of them came over to him, each taking a shoulder and helping Caleb over to sit under a tree. “You look…”

It was like he could see the conflict written out plainly on Fjord’s face. _He wants to say I look like shit, but I am cleaner than I’ve been in months_. That fact was suddenly so funny that Caleb giggled a little hysterically, happy to sit when they helped him.

“I just had a bath,” he said. “Maxwell _insisted_.” He saw them exchange an anxious look, probably assuming – not entirely without merit – that he was too addled to see it.

“That’s…good,” Beau said, but she didn’t sound entirely like she believed it.

Steady, steady. His thoughts were trying to fly apart. He needed to stay _here_. Caleb reached out to grab Fjord’s sleeve as though to physically anchor himself. “I am very tired," he said, as steadily as he could. "I have not slept in…how many days? Two days?” It was suddenly so hard to remember.

“You look it,” Fjord said, sitting down on one side of him while Beau sat down on the other. “I’m sorry, we…I can’t believe we didn’t notice. I mean, uh, is there anything we can do to help?”

“I mean, Nott’s at work in that lab all day,” Beau added. “Maybe she could make you something. Have you told her?”

“No,” Caleb said, very quietly. “I…I don’t want to make too much of a fuss about this, please. I don’t want to worry her, or…or Maxwell. Please, I only need a few hours to rest. But I don’t want that to take away from my work. And so, Fjord, I was wondering if you might help me with my translation, for a time. Only if you do not have anything more important to do today.”

He saw Fjord glance over his head at Beau. Beau spoke up immediately. “Hey man, I do good work with my fists, but I can still swing a hatchet. Go on in, I’ll finish up out here.”

“All right,” Fjord said, wrapping an arm around Caleb’s shoulders and helping him up again. “I just…I mean, Caleb, I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, I know you’re working on some kind of old ritual Lucien made but that’s about all.”

“You know the spell to comprehend languages, yes? Yes, of course you do. And if you need soot or salt, I have plenty. That is the most important step, in a way. You can have all my notes, build on them from there. And you are smart, Fjord, I have no doubt you can make more progress than I can in this state.” He held up his damaged hand for evidence, smiling weakly.

“Heh. Probably true,” Fjord said, and his smile looked just as faint.

“I just…” Caleb took a shallow breath and tried fiercely to blink his eyes clear. He was not going to cry, he would not, he would _not_. Not now, not after coming this far. “I am _so tired_ , Fjord.” His voice broke anyway, despite all his determination. “I, I know I am going to make stupid mistakes if I carry on like this, and, and you do not even have to finish it. I just, I need some time, Fjord, _please_.”

He didn’t even really care what the ritual did anymore. Caleb knew what mattered – that it was something that would hurt his friends. He didn’t care about the ritual, he just cared about having someone _there_ to keep watch over him while the light of day hopefully let him get some rest.

 _You are blaming Maxwell Virago for giving you bad dreams_ , he scolded himself. _You really are going crazy._ But was that really such an odd idea, after everything he’d seen? Maybe so, but it was an idea to hold on to anyway. Sunlight was a bane to vampires – perhaps it would be a bane to their magic as well.

“All right, all right,” Fjord said, the look on Caleb’s face apparently bad enough to move him to try and soothe the wizard. “Easy now, Caleb. We’ll get you back inside and get you some sleep. It’s gonna be fine.”

“I hope so,” Caleb whispered, but he was nowhere near sure anymore.

Fjord was confused when Caleb adamantly refused to be led back to their windowless room, but gave up questioning easily enough and followed Caleb to the library instead.

Once they were there, Caleb showed Fjord to his desk and pulled out the chair for his friend to sit down in. He showed Fjord his notes, underlining what he felt were the most important bits, and shuffled the pages of Lucien’s writing so that the pages he’d been working on were at the top. Once he reassured himself that Fjord still remembered how to cast a spell to at least begin to comprehend Lucien’s byzantine encryptions, Caleb was satisfied that his friend could at least _look_ busy for the next several hours.

Job done, he shrugged out of his coat and laid himself down right there on the floor of the library, carefully positioning himself in a sunbeam and bundling his coat into a makeshift pillow. Just from the noise Fjord made, Caleb knew his friend thought he was being ridiculous. He was too tired to care.

The last thing he felt before sleep claimed him was a cloak being laid over him, however, and maybe it was the sunlight or maybe it was the reminder of having someone watching over him, but Caleb slept deeply and his mind was free of nightmares.


	12. The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb makes a new friend. Jester brings good news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chunk of text I was going to post as Chapter 12 wound up being massive, so I'm splitting it in half. But because I teased Molly's return so much, y'all are getting those two chapters back to back anyway. I mean, I say that like it's a hardship, but I'm excited for this particular cat to be out of the bag, too. 
> 
> That said, this probably means there won't be a Monday chapter, since I'll be spending this weekend resting my wrists and trying to get even close to finishing up in between resting my wrists. Sorry about that! Hope these chapters make up for it - I should have something new up by next Wednesday for sure.
> 
> Summary of previous chapter: Maxwell cornered Caleb alone while he was at work in the library and dragged him away. While forcing Caleb to have a bath, Maxwell then proceeded to outline some of his thoughts/plans for the future, and both kept Caleb's attention and kept him on edge by periodically waterboarding him. Maxwell's monologuing included admitting that he was conducting experiments to "improve" vampires by figuring out how to cure them of their associated weaknesses and that the encrypted ritual he obtained from Lucien was a part of that. He also admitted to wanting to turn Caleb into a vampire "the old fashioned way" to ensure that Caleb did not meet the same messy fate it was implied others who were subjected to the incomplete ritual have. Maxwell also made mention of the fact that when Caleb was done with the translation, Fjord, Beau, and Nott would be the first test subjects. 
> 
> Upon the torture and monologue being completed, Caleb - realizing that he was at the end of his emotional rope on top of being almost out of spells - sought out Beau and Fjord outside, eventually convincing Fjord to take over work on the ritual as a pretext for Caleb to get a few hours of real sleep.

_His sleep was free of nightmares, but it was not free of dreams._

_In his dream, Caleb stood behind his parent’s house. The path stretched on ahead of him, away from home and hearth and towards the woods where he had always been warned away from. Do not go into the woods after dark or the vampires will get you, his parents had always said to him when he was a child. And Caleb was a child again._

_“You’re almost at the end of the road,” said Astrid, who stood beside him, holding his hand. “Exciting, isn’t it?”_

_“What are you talking about?” Caleb asked her, looking at his oldest friend. Her face was…wrong. In some slight but definite way, her face was_ wrong _. It was Astrid’s hair and Astrid’s smile but Astrid’s_ eyes…

_(Astrid’s eyes had always been blue. Not green.)_

_“Careful, now,” said Eodwulf, patting Caleb on the head. He’d always been the tallest and loved to lord it over Caleb ever since they were old enough to try stealing sweets from the high shelves of his mother’s cabinet. Except that hadn’t happened yet. Why did he remember it? “It’s not time to wake up yet.”_

_“I, I am awake,” Caleb stammered, staring up helplessly at this unfamiliar familiar face._

_Eodwulf hummed thoughtfully, before shading his green eyes and regarding the road ahead. “Sort of. It’s complicated. Walk with me?”_

_“Where to?”_

_“Wherever the road takes us.”_

_And, because it was Eodwulf, when he started off down the road Caleb chased after him. They had gotten into all sorts of mischief, together with Astrid. Or they would, one day. They were only children now._

_They were teenagers, and when Caleb glanced back the town was already so far away, a speck on the horizon, and the forest was looming deep and dark ahead. He didn’t want to go, there were monsters dwelling in the shadows of those trees, but his feet kept moving and he did not voice his fear. Fear was just as dangerous as any monster._

_“Not really,” said the ginger cat, who trotted on ahead with his tail held jauntily high. He glanced back at Caleb, and Caleb saw that the cat’s eyes were green from edge to edge. It also seemed to be smiling but, then again, cats always were. “A little bit of fear can even be good. It helps you avoid the holes in the roads, keeps your eyes sharp…and it adds a little bit of spice to the story when you’re telling it around the fire later.”_

_“This is not a story I want to tell.”_

_Caleb shivered, and didn’t know why. He could feel the heat of distant flames at his back. He did not dare turn to look. The path ahead stretched on and on, and he knew somehow that it would lead him through the trees and out the other side._

_But he did not know what lay beyond the woods, and somehow that was just as terrifying._

_“Who are you?” he asked, struggling for some sense, for meaning that he could tell lay just beyond his fingertips._

_“A friend,” said Nott._

_“I’m very easy to make friends with,” said Jester. She turned around with a twirl of her skirts and smiled at him, walking backwards. “All anyone has to do is ask. And you did say ‘please’.”_

_They stood together at the edge of the wood, in the shadows of trees more ancient than even the Empire could dare to claim. The road stretched on ahead of them, into darkness._

_“Are you scared?” asked Jester._

_“Yes.” He was a grown man, and he was still as scared as any child._

_“Me, too.”_

_Caleb snorted in disbelief. “Liar.”_

_“Oh, I am that. And I’m very good at it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell a tale truly, when the mood takes me. You’re almost at the end of the road, Caleb. And even I can’t see what’s waiting for you.”_

_“Then why do I need to walk it?” He was a child again, staring up at Beauregard. The night was dark and the wind was cold and he just wanted to go_ home _but he had forgotten the way a long time ago._

_“Because it could be something better.”_

_Beau reached out her hand, looking down at him with warm, gentle green eyes. Caleb took it, and together they walked into the forest, under the moon. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, but the stars were bright enough to let him see the path for at least a little bit ahead of his feet._ _As long as he kept his eyes on the road ahead, things weren’t so scary._

 _“I can’t walk the road for you,” said Fjord. “I can’t draw you a map. All I can do is give you a nudge. A chance. There’s always_ something _better waiting for you up ahead. It’s just a matter of how far you have to go to get there.”_

_“What about when I reach the end?”_

_“The end of one road is just the start of another,” said Mollymauk. “That’s the great thing about roads.”_

_He saw that Caleb was starting to tire, however, and picked him up easily. “But you’ve been walking a hard path alone. You need to rest. I can’t give you much, but I can give you this. At least until we get to know each other a little better.”_

_“I want to go home.”_

_“Of course you do. Everyone does. No one goes on a journey that doesn’t mean to go home at the end of it, even if the one they return to isn’t the one they left. What good is a journey that doesn’t end with you telling stories of it over your own table, in front of your own hearth? You’ll have a hell of a story to tell when this is done, Caleb. I just hope you find a good audience.”_

_He was grown up once more, tired and filthy and shabby and sore. But when Yasha set him down, back on his own two feet, he was able to stand once more. He must have only rested a moment, but it felt like hours, and he felt better._

_“You’re on the right path,” said Yasha. “I won’t let you stray. Unless you want to, of course. Sometimes straying is fun.”_

_“I’ve done my best,” Caleb said, shading his eyes to scan the path ahead. It still seemed so dark._

_“I know. And that’s going to count for something.”_

_“You really don’t talk much sense. No wonder Jester likes you so much.”_

_The figure behind him chuckled, in the voice of everyone Caleb had ever known and loved and lost. “Oh dear. I_ did _tell you to try and rest a little while longer. But you just can’t keep that mind of yours’ from tick, tick, ticking away, can you?”_

_Caleb looked back, and standing there was a cowled figure. The cloak they wore covered almost everything, and was made of some material that shimmered iridescent in the light of the moon and stars. It was somehow every color at once, and in those colors were shadows painting out echoes of journeys long done and friends long gone._

_The only other detail visible were the eyes – a bright, verdant green, that crinkled at the edges with amusement and fondness as they regarded Caleb._

_“Why?” Caleb asked._

_“I told you. We’re friends. If you want to be.”_

_“…something tells me I will need all the friends I can get very soon.”_

_“Most people do, in my experience. That’s why I’ve never understood why more people don’t turn to me. I’m very easy to make friends with. Even if I can’t offer much but a nudge, or a rest.”_

_The Traveler turned away from him, and they should have been outlined by distant flames, but the lights of Caleb’s burning past had faded and there were only shadows behind. “But you can do a lot with that. Time flies when you’re having fun, I think you’ll find, and_ I’ve _certainly had fun with our little chat. Still, it probably_ is  _also time for you to get back to work. You’re almost at the end of the road, Caleb, and people are waiting on you.”_

_“…I know.” He’d already kept them waiting too long._

_“Our paths diverge here. But they will meet again. It’s just a matter of how long it will take.”_

_“I suppose we will just have to wait and see where the road takes us.” Caleb caught himself smiling, as the Traveler’s presence behind him slowly faded, back into the distance, back along unknowable paths._

_Caleb walked ahead instead, towards distant lights and the thought of home._

*  *  *

Exhaustion meant that Jester slept later than she would have liked, but she was still pretty sure she was heading for her usual meeting spot at about the usual time. She sprinted up the hill anyway, just to make sure. Frumpkin seemed to have recovered well from his kicking the night before and hurried on ahead of her. They didn’t have to avoid the cart again. She hoped that meant good things.

Jester already had the wire in her hand, twirling through her fingers, as she slid to a stop and dropped to her knees behind the bush. “Caleb!” she whispered, grinning broadly. “Caleb, guess what?”

She waited with bated breath, but…there was no reply.

Jester frowned and repeated the spell more carefully this time, keeping her eyes fixed on the wire to make sure she did it exactly right. “Caleb?” she asked. “Are you there?”

Only silence greeted her. Jester risked peeking over the top of the bush. There was definitely a shadow there, bent over the desk. Was it Caleb? Why was he ignoring her?

“ _Caleb!”_ she whisper-yelled into the wire, as loud as she could. “Even if you’re mind controlled, say something!”

Nothing. Jester ground her teeth and thumped her fist into the dead tree in agitation. “ _Fuck_  this.” She was not going to let things fall apart now, not when they were so close. “Frumpkin? Do you think you can get up to the window? At least enough to see inside? Tap me on the leg once for yes, twice for no.”

Frumpkin batted her on the leg once and then sat back, awaiting further orders.

“Okay,” Jester said, scratching at her horns as she tried to make a plan. “You go up there as high as you can, and try to see inside. I want to know if that’s Caleb sitting there – come back and tap me on the leg once for yes, twice for no.”

Frumpkin chirped his assent and darted out of hiding, scampering towards the house. Jester raised her head as little as she could to see over the top of the bush and watch him go.

Frumpkin hopped up to a windowsill on the first floor, then the second. The third floor window didn’t have a sill at all, and if that was Caleb sitting at the desk, he didn’t seem to realize Frumpkin was there like he always had before. Jester saw Frumpkin sitting on the ledge, tipping his head back as far as it could go, staring up at the figure through the library window and practically vibrating in agitation. Then she gasped as Frumpkin leaped up to the window anyway, his paws thudding and beating at it as he scrabbled for purchase long enough to see inside and get someone’s attention. He definitely did, the figure at the desk standing up and even trying to work to open the window as Frumpkin slid out of sight, but that gave Jester enough time to see that it was Fjord.

Fjord didn’t get the window open in time to stop Frumpkin from falling. The cat hit the second floor windowsill hard before sliding off of it to land gracelessly on a first floor ledge. Then he leaped back to the ground and raced away in a blur of ginger fur by the time Fjord was peering out to look for him. Jester only just remembered in time to duck down hastily behind the bush before she was seen.

It was several heartstopping seconds before Frumpkin reappeared, racing back up the hill towards her, apparently having made a wide circle around the perimeter to stay out of Fjord’s sight. Jester gathered him up, relieved beyond words, but didn’t let herself speak until she heard the window close and latch itself again.

“What the heck were you doing?!” she demanded then, holding the cat up at eye level. “I didn’t say to do that! What if Fjord comes out here looking for us? Why am I lecturing a cat?!” She shook him a little bit, before sighing in defeat and letting Frumpkin settle on her lap once more. This Frumpkin did, curling up and purring, before reaching out to swat her on the leg three times.

“What the heck does three times mean?” Jester asked, frowning. After a moment to consider, she ventured a guess: “Did you still see Caleb?”

One tap.

“Was he okay?”

One tap.

“Was he mind controlled?”

Two taps.

Jester let out her breath in a long sigh of relief, slumping back against the tree and hugging Frumpkin to her chest. “Okay. That’s really, really good to know. I was kinda freaking out for a sec. So thank you for finding that out for me, Frumpkin. I guess that wasn’t such a dumb thing to do. I mean, even if Fjord’s suspicious, we’re gonna get him back today, so it’s all…”

_“Jester?”_

She’d let the wire slip from her fingers. Jester hastily gathered it up and sent a reply. “Caleb! There you are!”

 _“Why did you send Frumpkin up here? Fjord_ absolutely _noticed him. I’m amazed I got him out of the room so quickly.”_

She scowled. “You weren’t answering me, dummy! I was just about to go and kick the door down!” she hissed.

 _“…oh.”_  That seemed to take the wind out of his annoyance somewhat.  _“Yes, ah, sorry. I was…I was asleep.”_

Jester felt her hackles lowering a bit, remembering how exhausted Caleb had been the day before. “Did you sleep good?” she asked cautiously.

 _“Surprisingly so."_ He sounded just as surprised to say it as she was to hear it.  _“I feel better, I feel…rested.”_

“Do you feel magic?”

 _“I feel_ incredibly _magic.”_ She could almost hear him grinning.  _“Which is, ah, a little odd, if I am being honest, because I can’t have slept more than about four hours.”_

“Well, that’s great news! And hey, y’know, I also have some pretty great news! Guess what I did last night?”

_“Knowing you, I would not dare.”_

“You are such a jerk!” But she was fighting not to laugh in delight again, trying not to give away the secret before she got the words out. “Caleb! Last night I killed a vampire! I staked him in the heart just like you said and he poofed into dust! And that’s about as dead as dead gets, right?”

 _“You…”_  He must have known that was what she would say, he must have known that this was the only good news that mattered to either of them right now, but Caleb still sounded utterly dumbfounded. He messaged her back in time for her to hear him slump back into a chair.  _“You did it? You killed the one he created? You’re…”_

“Amazing? Spectacular?” She thought to herself that he had better not be about to ask her if she was certain.

 _“Yes,”_  Caleb answered immediately, and that left Jester momentarily at a loss for words. Frumpkin was looking up at her with a smug sort of expression. She stuck her tongue out at him before she spun the wire again.

“It was just like you said. I used some spells that do mostly holy stuff and they really messed him up. I tried to cut his head off but that was kind of hard, even with my shiny new magic axe. And I tried to set him on fire, and that  _really_  seemed to hurt, but I thought it would probably take too long for him to burn all the way up. So I staked him! And it worked!”

_“Just like that? I, I had read that staking was mostly effective when done while the vampire was in its resting place.”_

“Hm…” That seemed an unwelcome hiccup. Then other details of the night before came back to her slowly. “He tripped and fell in a hole while he was on fire! An open grave. I went in after him and that’s when I staked him. Maybe it was his grave, and nobody had filled it back up yet? Would that have counted? I didn’t know his name, so I didn’t check.”

 _“It should have,”_ Caleb said. He sounded so relieved, and Jester smiled happily to herself.  _“Then…then you’ve done it, Jester. We’ve proven that it can be done, and most importantly, that it can be done by us. For all his magic, Virago is not invincible. He is still just a walking corpse, and we can make certain he dies all over again like one.”_

“Yeah!” Jester said, fistpumping. “So I was thinking, why don’t we do it today? You said it yourself, we know how to kill him, we’ve both got all our magic, so there’s really no…”

_“I agree.”_

Jester fell silent, frowning hard enough to leave her brow furrowing. She stared fixedly at nothing very much for several seconds before she dared to reply to his message.

“See,  _obviously_  that’s the right choice, but I kinda thought you’d fight me a little more on it, since you’re the one who’s been telling me not to just go and kick the door down since this all started.” An awful, ugly thought occurred to her, making Jester’s stomach go tight and sick with dread. “Caleb, did…did something else happen today?”

 _“It doesn’t matter.”_  Which was not a “no”.  _“There is no reason for me to fight you on this, Jester. It's as you say – we know everything we need to and, and if Virago sleeps at all he will be asleep now. In fact, he_ must _rest at some point, even an undead wizard must rest to recover his magic at some point. If we wait until it gets dark, he might also notice his creation has been killed and then he will start asking questions I cannot answer. Besides, all of our friends are here now, so we won’t have to track them down later, or worry about them creeping up on us while we are doing what needs to be done, and…”_ She heard him gulp, like he was physically steeling himself for the words he said next. Even when he did speak, his voice wavered badly.  _“And it might be dangerous, to hesitate much longer.”_

“Why do you think that?” Jester asked quietly.

 _“It doesn’t matter. It_ won’t _matter. We will make certain of that.”_

“Y-Yeah,” Jester said, and if her voice wavered, it was only because her heart hurt  _so much_  for her friend in that moment. Whatever had happened today must have been just as bad or worse than yesterday, to leave Caleb sounding like that, sounding so shaken and scared and like he was trying so hard not to admit it. Caleb sounded like glass – bright and brittle. She had to do whatever she could to make sure he didn’t break. “Yeah, of course we will. Okay! Okay, we’re gonna do this thing. So should I just go kick the door down now, or…?”

He sounded like he was considering it, and Jester was half-rising from her seat before Caleb spoke again.  _“Twenty minutes. Please.”_

Jester let out an irritated sigh and flopped back into a sitting position. “That’s not your way of saying ‘give me twenty minutes so I can go and fight this vampire all by myself like a moron’, is it?”

 _“Absolutely not.”_  He sounded believably horrified at the prospect.  _“No, I just, I-I mean, there are a few loose ends I want to tie up. A few avenues of attack I might close to him. That will be easier while it’s still just me inside. Once you launch your attack, things will have to move quickly. But I will join you then.”_

“You promise? You promise that you’re just going to set some sneaky traps and not fight vampires all by yourself at all?”

_“If I were standing right next to you, I would be extending my pinkie finger for you to shake.”_

She giggled a bit, despite herself. “Okay. I believe you. But, uh, how am I gonna know when it’s been twenty minutes? Not everybody always knows what time it is no matter what, Caleb!”

She heard him grumbling to himself for a moment, before he said:  _“Please ask Frumpkin to come a little nearer to the house.”_

“Frumpkin, go up to the house,” Jester said to the cat. “But no climbing any more windowsills!”

Frumpkin hopped off her lap, flattened himself low in the grass, and slunk rather more carefully back towards the house. Jester glanced up to see him sit down right up against the wall, staring up once more at the third floor window. Up there, she saw Caleb staring fixedly back down at his cat. Until at last he stepped away from the window once more and Frumpkin trotted back over to Jester.  _“Frumpkin will tell you when it has been twenty minutes,”_ Caleb said, as the familiar settled down beside her.

“Okay, thanks. Um, before you go do your thing, do you wanna maybe come out here so I can give you some more holy water, or maybe heal your hand a little bit? I’ve got a lot of holy water, now, I’ve been making more.”

Jester was starting to feel a little nervous. Caleb was bound and determined to move forward with this, and so was she, but…Caleb seemed to be  _very_  invested in the “at any cost” part of this plan, even at the expense of himself. She wished she could believe there was any way he would tell her what happened this morning, but she had a feeling that was why he was trying to stay inside, trying to avoid seeing her until they both had bigger things to worry about – so he wouldn’t have to look at her and risk her seeing anything in his eyes.

At least Caleb seemed to sense her worry, and had the mercy not to cause her any more.  _“I will come out to you. On foot, so it will take a few moments. Be right there.”_

Jester felt her heart skip a beat. This was the first time he’d so openly risked being seen communicating with her by someone else in the house. It was the only sensible decision, since it would allow him a little more magic in the fight ahead, but it still meant something.

They really were going to do this.

Jester waited patiently, petting Frumpkin to stave off the urge to chew her nails. At last, she heard footsteps racing closer. She braced herself for the worst, just in case, but it was only Caleb who slid behind the bush next to her, panting a little from the run.

“Hello,” he said, and even here, right in front of her, he could barely seem to meet her eyes. It was like he was braced for the worst, too.

Jester could see why. She didn’t know quite what had happened to him this morning but she could see the results and they were  _wrong_.

“Caleb, you’re  _clean!_ ” she gasped. “Why the heck are you  _clean_?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Caleb flatly, but the memory of his bath was apparently bad enough that he drew his knees up to his chin, staring straight ahead at nothing again. Frumpkin was having none of that, however, and clambered up Caleb’s legs to drape over his knees, blinking slowly at the wizard. That was enough to get Caleb’s eyes to refocus, at least, though Frumpkin was the only thing he seemed capable of focusing on.

He smiled faintly at the cat and petted him with his good hand. “I know I do not look like myself but I swear to you that I  _am_  still myself, this morning was just…” He struggled visibly for words, then gave up with a frustrated sigh. “Please, just…can you take a look at my hand?”

“Of course,” said Jester quietly. When Caleb held it out to her, she unwrapped the bandages and set aside the splints. Then she carefully held his hand between both of hers’ and cast two cure spells in quick succession, feeling the muscles ease beneath her hands and the sinews heal a little more.

“Thank you,” Caleb said when she let go, staring at his hand, flexing his fingers to test her work. He didn’t wince this time. When he cast a dancing lights spell, even though his fingers still shook and fumbled a little bit, they worked enough to let him succeed in only one attempt. “Thank you, Jester.  It feels better. I think I will be able to hold my own, at least.”

“That’s good! That’s all we need. And you don’t even need to do  _that_  much, because…we’ll be fighting together. Right?” She ducked her head a little, trying to meet his eyes. Her efforts were successful, at least. He darted a glance at her, the first time he’d looked at her so far, and she saw him muster up a wan smile.

“Right,” he said, and held out his fist for a fistbump. Jester was more than happy to fistbump him, then she pulled off her haversack and went rummaging around for the holy water. She’d taken advantage of Caleb having enough for a few days to start building up their reserves a little more aggressively – she passed over three to him, and that left four for her. Once that was done, Jester set to work rewrapping his hand, though she left the splints off this time. The job wouldn’t need to stand up to an even passably close inspection this time. Their only hope was that it would give him an element of surprise when the fighting started

“Okay,” Caleb said, as he tucked the vials into various pockets of his coat. “Okay, okay, that is…I think that is everything.  _Ja?_  Is that everything we need, are all our plans in place, are…”

“Yep,” said Jester. “Yep, yep, and yep. Or at least they will be after you do whatever you’re gonna do in twenty minutes.”

“Right,” Caleb said, clapping his hands and nodding resolutely. “I am just going to take one more look around Virago’s lab while he is asleep, go through his scrolls to see if any look useful, then set fire to the rest. And then I will try to gather up at least one or two of our friends and bring them out to you and maybe the two of us together can find some way to fix them very, very quickly. That is all.”

That didn’t sound so dangerous, and so Jester felt a little better about letting him go. She had absolutely no idea how to lift the charm on their friends, and clearly neither did Caleb. Even so, he was right that they were out of time and would need to try  _something,_ and she would rather they be together for the attempt. “Then okay! Yeah, we’ve got everything we need. We’ve got a plan!”

Caleb glanced to Frumpkin. “Start keeping count…”

Jester threw her arms around him. Caleb made a startled sort of noise, rocking back a little from the force of the embrace…but once the shock faded, he returned it fiercely.

“It’s gonna be okay, Caleb,” Jester murmured to him. “I’m gonna make sure of it. I’m gonna keep you all safe.”

She felt him nod. She heard him speak, little more than a whisper. “…now.”

When he pulled away, she let him go, then sat back and watched as he hurried towards the house once more.

Jester curled up behind the red bush in the shadow of the dead tree, pulled Frumpkin into her lap, and started counting seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you! You reading this now that it's completed! If it's past midnight where you are, you should really go to bed! Shit starts to go down in a serious way starting next chapter and it really doesn't slow down for a while - now's a good time for you to take a break and get some sleep!


	13. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb returns to the lab, looking for magical weapons to use against Maxwell. He finds something and someone far more unexpected instead.

Caleb took the long way around the house again to avoid Beau and Fjord. He almost ran into a zombie along the way, contemplated setting it on fire, but settled for sidling around it and glowering at it while it stared at him with sightless eyes and a missing jaw. Once that was done, he darted back inside the house and hurried for the laboratory door, hastily casting a detect magic spell before he dared touch the knob. _Good_. His spells were still in place, Maxwell apparently hadn’t noticed the difference. That meant he didn’t even need to bother dispelling the alarms on the door this time. Caleb just eased the door open and slipped inside the lab, through the obscuring mist and back into the reek of undead test subjects and old blood.

Then Caleb found himself stopping dead before he was even halfway down the steps, because when he could properly see all the many hues and shades of magic auras, this place was actually undeniably beautiful.

There was magic in the very walls of this room, a spell woven so tightly over many castings and many months that it would never need to be cast again. He’d always seen abjuration as a rich purple light, and it was glowing all around him. The corpses, both moving and still, were covered in swirling black shrouds, no doubt remnants of the necromantic magics that had risen them. A fair few of the tools on the wall were flashing with red evocation auras, or shimmering with the familiar blues of transmutation. A lot of the tables the bodies were strapped to were lit up with orange enchantments – that was concerning. The magic circle was pulsing with dimmer notes of black and blue, seemingly dormant.

And then there were the bins of scrolls.

They glittered for Caleb as bright as any treasure hoard, all the colors that magic could be all piled up and waiting for him. For a moment he forgot himself, forgot the danger, and wanted nothing more than to just sit and read and _learn_. So many clues to his ultimate goal could be hidden in those two bins.

 _If Maxwell turns you into a vampire you could sit and read forever_ , the ruthlessly practical side of him hissed in the back of his mind. And that was enough to get Caleb to shake himself, like a man emerging from a dream. He steeled himself anew, though not without a pang of regret.

Fixing his mistakes could come later. Saving his friends came first. Maxwell Virago was not the only source of magical knowledge in the world.

Caleb had to remind himself of that a couple of times as he settled down before the crates and started to sift quickly through their contents, unrolling scrolls, skimming them, and setting them aside. He was looking for powerful magics and enchantments, of the sort that would finish a vampire off quickly and of the sort that a wizard might not be able to defend easily against.

Yet it was still hard to focus on his task, and it took Caleb a second to realize why. There was a spell in this room, in the corner off to his right, who’s presence he’d missed at first because it was coming up purple in his vision. He’d initially mistook it for the magic in the walls. But as seconds ticked by, it became increasingly impossible to ignore that this spell was shining so much _brighter_ than the abjuration on the walls, brighter than any other magic in the room. It was like trying to read while the sun was in his peripheral vision, it was like trying to focus while Jester was trying to get your attention.

Finally, his curiosity got the better of him. Maybe once he knew what it was, it would be easier to ignore. Caleb glanced over toward the corner, frowning, squinting his eyes to try and puzzle out exactly what he was seeing. The next thing to hit him as strange was that this spell wasn’t attached to the walls or even the floor, it was…it was underneath it all. It was under the house.

Caleb’s mind raced as he tried to piece details together. Abjuration spells were typically spells of protection, but they could also be spells of containment. He couldn’t imagine what was under the house that would need such ferociously strong protection, so maybe it was something being held there…

The scroll he'd been reading fell from his nerveless fingers as the answer hit him like a chair to the face. Caleb sat back, staring in dawning horror at the patch of empty floor, at the truth of what lay beneath. He could feel himself starting to shake, could feel tears stinging at his eyes.

“Oh, no,” Caleb whispered. “Oh, no, no, no, _ach du lieber gott,_ please…”

The last time he’d seen Mollymauk Tealeaf, it had been as he was being dragged beneath the earth.

Caleb realized then that his friend had never come up again.

 _He is dead_. The thought chased itself round and round his head, and each time felt like it was driving a spike of ice further into his heart. _He is dead, he must be dead, it has been_ days…

He hugged himself and shook his head, trying to shake the thought out of his head, trying to breathe. _No. You do not need magic that powerful for a corpse. He is alive. He_ must _be._

That didn’t mean Caleb had any reason to leave him down there a second longer, though.

Two scrolls near the top of a pile were shining black. He grabbed for them, tore them open, and saw at a glance that they would suffice for his plans. Then Caleb got up, grabbed a scalpel off a rack, and hurried over to the tables of corpses.

He picked two zombies that looked like they wouldn’t snap in half the second they exerted themselves. Caleb opened one of the scrolls and pointed at one. “ _You_ ,” he said, and bit back a wince as the necromantic energies coursed through him, sharp and cold as a winter storm, leaving him breathless and dizzy for a moment. This magic was far too strong for him, but the scroll could make up the difference and that was all that mattered to him there and then.

“And _you_.” He pointed at another zombie and exerted his command again. Both scrolls crumbled to dust. Both zombies stopped clawing for him, stopped squirming and moaning, stopped doing anything at all. Instead, they just stared at him with endless patience, awaiting orders.

Before he gave them any, Caleb pulled a clay cat’s paw out of his pocket and turned back to Mollymauk’s grave. The stone floor crackled and buckled as the dirt beneath bubbled and funneled up, taking shape into an enormous earthen paw that left the dirt around it exposed.

Caleb sliced the restraints off the zombies and pointed at the open ground.

 _“Dig,”_ he commanded, even as the magic made his tongue go numb and his hands shake with effort.

Chattering and rasping, the two zombies made their ungainly way up and off their biers and started to shuffle towards the spot Caleb had indicated. Caleb followed behind, hastily considering options. He didn’t know if he could make the paw dig with them, that wasn’t what it was supposed to be _for_. He could try to make it keep grabbing at nothing and hope that that broke up the dirt enough, but in the end decided that his own two hands might, just this once, do the job better here.

So he fell to his knees between the two zombies and he dug at the dirt where his friend had been entombed for so many days. He didn’t know what he would find down there but he dug anyway because to not _try_ was unthinkable. Mollymauk was alive, he _had_ to be alive…

Caleb was so engrossed in his work and his wishing that he didn’t notice the poison cloud until it had already flowed over his shoulders and engulfed both him and the zombies. Caleb gasped with shock to realize what was happening and then it was all over. Then suddenly the stench was filling his mouth, suddenly it was in his throat and in his lungs and it _burned._ He choked, clapping a hand over his mouth far too late. It already felt like the gas was dissolving him from the inside out, he was seized with the wild urge to claw his own throat out if that would just get it out, make it _stop_. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw both zombies continuing to dig obediently, visibly untroubled, but as they did so the poison was slowly eating holes in their rotted flesh.

Coughing and wheezing, tears streaming from his eyes, Caleb nevertheless managed to struggle to his feet and turn around and there was Maxwell Virago, standing at the base of the stairs and watching patiently with a faint smile as the zombies dissolved and Caleb choked.

“Well then,” said the vampire mildly. “I think now is the time to…”

He actually looked shocked when Caleb shot three scorching rays at him with his previously wounded hand before dashing out of the poison cloud. It was a minor miracle he could do that much with his head swimming from lack of air, but it was an old spell, a familiar spell, and the fire did not fail him. The attack didn’t seem to _do_ much, Caleb could tell the difference between a cry of surprise and one of pain, but it still bought Caleb a few seconds to gulp in lungfuls of relatively clean air so that the burning in his throat faded enough to let him breathe without coughing.

Once he was sure he could speak without spitting blood, Caleb looked up at the vampire and grinned fiercely.

“Surprise, _arschloch_.”

Maxwell looked up at him, scowling in a way that still sent a shiver of ice down Caleb’s spine. He could see now that his attack had connected solidly, scorching holes in the vampire’s expensive clothes and frying some of the flesh off his face. But as he stared in horror, Caleb saw the skin start to rapidly heal itself like nothing much had happened, unmarked flesh creeping back over exposed muscle and bone.

“So that’s how it is,” Maxwell said coolly. He raised a hand and spoke a single word that made the air around him echo loudly with power. An arcane sigil painted itself in the air between them and Caleb made the mistake of looking at it and suddenly his entire body, every nerve and inch of him, was lit up with red raw searing _pain_.

He didn’t even feel himself drop to his hands and knees, just saw the way the world tilted and shifted but it felt like the world was so far away, _everything_ was far away but the pain. Caleb could barely hear himself _screaming_ over the force of it. Something was tearing his skin off, something was eating him from the inside out, stabbing and burning and freezing and breaking and he was sinking, drowning, _dying_ …

He didn’t know how long he lay there, helpless and suffering. It felt like hours. Eventually, awareness and some semblance of sense started to return to him, and one of the first realizations that came with it was that his throat had gone too raw to scream anymore, he was too _tired_ to draw in that much breath. Yet the pain did not cease, it did not end, even as he lost the strength to fight it or even express how much it hurt and so was just left whimpering and convulsing and shuddering on the floor as it coursed through him like a poisonous tide.

He must have been getting used to it on some level, however, because Caleb could hear again, and he could hear footsteps drawing nearer. As his vision stabilized, he saw Maxwell’s legs standing in front of him. Presumably the rest of Maxwell was there as well. He tried to lift his head to check and felt a spike being driven deeper into his skull.

“All this to find Lucien,” the monster was saying. “I admit, Caleb, I am impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you. I certainly didn’t expect you to figure this out so quickly. I might even be impressed, if you hadn’t just tried to _incinerate_ me. I’m almost as offended by the fact that you thought such an _apprentice-level_ spell would do much more than offend me.”

He kicked out, and Caleb felt a brighter star of pain flare in his ribs before he slumped bonelessly onto his side, unable to do more than gasp weakly at the impact.

“All this to find Lucien,” Maxwell mused. “Honestly, Caleb, I never imagined you wanted to talk to him _this_ badly. After all, you let yourself be talked by your friends into believing that Lucien was _dead_.” He chuckled lightly, as if recalling a mildly interesting joke. It fully sank in for Caleb then that, to Maxwell, that entire affair with his friends all sadly telling him the story of Mollymauk and Jester’s demise at Caleb’s hand _had_ been nothing more than a mildly interesting joke.

Shock momentarily gave him the strength to lift his head. Maxwell must have read something of that in the look on his face because he looked down at Caleb and smiled so wide, fangs gleaming. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! Of _course_ they were fake memories. You _knew_ they were fake memories. But you still believed them, didn’t you? Just for a minute? Now _that_ was fun. We’ve had a lot of fun these past few days, haven’t we, Caleb? I really thought we were establishing a real connection.”

Even with magically-induced pain drawing bloody furrows across his mind, it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. It really didn’t take much, even though doing so left Caleb feeling like the bottom had just been torn out of his stomach.

“You… _knew_ ,” he growled through gritted teeth.

“You’ll have to be more specific, Caleb,” Maxwell drawled, making a pretense at examining his nails. “I know a great many things. Do you mean I knew you were never _quite_ as fond of me as your friends, shall we say? Of course I did. Did you expect otherwise? I thought you were pretending for _their_ sake, not mine. Even if I couldn’t have felt you resisting me that first night, I could smell the _stink_ of holy water on your face the second. I admit, I never would have taken you for a holy man. And you just kept on pretending. Really, I’ll be honest, you didn’t do a half bad job of it. You just kept _fighting_ me even when you had to know that none of the others would stand with you. I was curious! Who could blame me? It’s been a while since I had anyone properly _fun_ to play with.”

As if to punctuate his point, he stamped down hard on Caleb’s left hand. Caleb managed a choked cry of pain as he felt his newly healed bones being ground beneath the vampire’s boot. He curled in on himself reflexively, reached out on instinct to try and get Maxwell _off_ of him, but he might as well have been trying to move a mountain.

“Do you know what’s the most fun about you, Caleb?” Maxwell asked, as tears of panic and pain burned in Caleb’s eyes on top of everything else that hurt. “It’s that no matter how much I do to you, you never _quite_ seem to break. I know I’ve had you right on the edge so many times but you never…quite…fall.” He twisted his heel just a little further on those last three words. Caleb winced and whimpered each time. “And trying to find your breaking point really has been great fun, Caleb. I don’t doubt that I’ll get there eventually. We’ll have all the time in the world very soon. But in the meantime, you’ve done enough to keep me from growing bored that I think you’ve earned a reward. You want to talk to Lucien so badly? Very well. Let’s see what he has to say about matters.”

He took his boot off of Caleb’s hand, and overwhelming relief momentarily took the edge off the hurt. Dimly, Caleb sensed Maxwell casting a spell from where the monster loomed over him, and resisting it seemed impossible to even consider. And if it was a spell that would bring Mollymauk back, maybe he shouldn’t resist at all…

Caleb felt a shudder run through him as two separate presences wormed their way into his head. At first there was just a general sense of _other_ that he reflexively lashed out at, tried to shove _away_. When his efforts proved hideously ineffective, however, that gave him time to become aware of other things. These weren’t just any presences, they were…familiar, and they brought with them words, _thoughts_. He recognized Maxwell like one might note a crow eyeing up corpses on the battlefield, but the other…

_So I guess it’s time for our daily session of me trying to think up new and creative ways to tell you to go fuck yourself, you…_

The tumult of thoughts in a familiar voice went silent all of a sudden, and Caleb realized that they weren’t just in his thoughts. He was in theirs’. He felt the other presence reach out, trying to recognize, trying to _understand_ , and now Caleb was crying for reasons beyond pain, because he _did_ know this mind and these thoughts and this _voice_.

 _Caleb?_ Mollymauk thought in disbelieving wonder.

Caleb laughed weakly, barely more than a breath. “ _Molly_.” The name rang in his mind like a bell, and the rush of relief and love that came with it was a momentary shield against the nightmare.

But only for a moment, because then Maxwell dragged Caleb up onto his knees by the back of his coat, and Caleb had just enough time to wonder what was happening and Molly had just enough time to realize something was happening.

Then electricity crackled down Caleb’s spine, through his nerves and limbs, lighting him up with agony all over again and tearing a hoarse, agonized _howl_ from Caleb as his body convulsed from the current.

He could hear screaming in his head, too, but it wasn’t his. _What are you doing to him, stop it, stop it…!_

“Lucien?” Maxwell asked lightly. “Remember when I said I killed all your friends? And you called me a liar? Well, you were right!” His tone went hard and cold, like night and day from anything Caleb had ever heard before. “I’m going to be that much less of a liar in the next sixty seconds if you don’t start being _reasonable._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the curious, here's what he did to Molly - https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Imprisonment#content . 
> 
> That's a real spell in 5E DND! I think that's pretty amazingly fucked up!


	14. Twenty Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxwell loses his temper. Caleb refuses to break. Molly refuses to let Caleb suffer any further. Nobody entirely gets what they want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG AUTHOR'S NOTE WARNING - this is probably the chapter where the physical torture is just straight up the most violent and brutal. On top of that, there will be psychological torture and emotional abuse about on par with what we've seen in Chapters 7 and 11. Maxwell drops any pretense of not being a vindictive, abusive monster in this chapter, and a lot of his language and dialogue will reflect that. Please do take care if you have had to experience an abusive relationship in the past. A summary will be provided at the start of the next chapter if you need to skip this one.

Caleb’s breath gave out as the electricity coursing through him faded and he was left with nothing but broken, breathless sobs. As if discarding some unpleasant piece of garbage, Maxwell let go of Caleb’s coat and let the wizard collapse helplessly back to the floor. He followed it up with another solid kick to Caleb’s ribs that made him slide across the floor a little bit, curling in on himself.

He felt Molly in his mind, panicking, calling for him. He felt Maxwell, too, felt his amusement and smug satisfaction. “Can you feel him, Lucien?” Maxwell called, voicing his thoughts so that the echoed more clearly to his two victims. Or perhaps he just loved the sound of his own voice that much. “Caleb and I have been having a great deal of fun these past few days. Is he telling you about it, yet? Maybe about the time I broke half his fingers? But he’s resilient, this one – maybe I should start breaking something more important, to stop him causing so much _trouble!_ ”

He stamped down hard on Caleb’s back, then his arms, before kicking somewhere in Caleb’s side that made his vision go white. “What do you think? Hands, feet, arms, legs? _Neck_? Or should I just work my way down the list and you can tell me when to stop?”

 _Don’t listen, don’t_ listen _._ Caleb tried to think the words at Mollymauk, but he didn’t know if they were anything approaching coherent when it felt like everything else in his head was still screaming, when every inch of him was pain. He still didn’t know what Maxwell wanted of his friend but Caleb knew he was ready to die rather than see him get it.

 _Shut up_. He didn’t know if Molly was thinking that at him or the monster. _Just shut up!_

Caleb was dragged up onto his knees again and he looked up in time to see metal flash through the air before a line of fire was drawn across one cheek. He felt something warm oozing down his face, mingling with the tears. It took him a dizzy second to realize it was blood. Maxwell had picked up the scalpel Caleb had used to free the zombies.

“You can tell me when to stop whenever you’d like, Lucien,” Maxwell said coldly, as he cut a line to match it on the other half of Caleb’s face. “You know that. You know what I want.”

He leaned in close and licked up Caleb’s blood as it ran from the twin wounds. Then he shoved Caleb down again, onto his back, and the scalpel flashed again and again as it cut a network of crisscrossing slices through Caleb’s chest and along his arms, shallow but painful, especially when the spell left them feeling like every one was being rubbed with salt the second they opened.

 “Of course, if you’d rather just keep listening as Caleb _dies_ , that’s okay, too,” Maxwell said, barely audible over the cries of pain. “It doesn’t make a difference to me. I might not even let him stay dead. I might _glut_ myself on him and then raise him up to help me wring you dry of secrets! Some fresh perspective might do us both some good!”

 _Fight back!_ Caleb didn’t know if those were Molly’s thoughts screaming or his own. _Don’t let him do this to you!_ Whoever’s it was, the thought galvanized him just a little. Caleb lunged as Maxwell pulled away to cut him again, grabbing at the vampire’s arm and sending his own charge of electricity straight through the monster’s body. Maxwell winced, tensing up. More importantly, his fingers convulsed and the scalpel clattered to the floor, where Caleb was able to kick it away. As Maxwell regained his wits and snarled at him, Caleb followed it up with another firebolt to the face that sent his foe momentarily reeling. The smell of burning hair had never smelled so sweet.

Then the smoke cleared, and he went cold and terrified to see the icy  _fury_ on the vampire’s face. Caleb tried to struggle to his feet, but was shoved back down again hard enough that his head cracked against the floor, leaving him momentarily seeing stars.

“No,” said the vampire, getting to his feet. “You know what? I did warn you, Caleb. People who betray my trust are _disgusting_ to me.  And certainly not people I want to spend _eternity_ with. You don’t deserve what I can give you. What you deserve is to take the place of one of my cleaning staff on that _rack_. At least then I might finally get some use out of you. You seem to heal _remarkably_ quickly, after all, so you might last longer than the last few!”

He kicked Caleb in the chest again hard enough that Caleb knew he heard something crack, it certainly _felt_ like something had cracked. Then he got up, grabbed Caleb by one arm, and started to drag him away, away from Molly’s grave and towards the tables…

Caleb tried to struggle free, tried to pry Maxwell’s grip off of him, tried to shock him or burn him or paralyze him, but the pain was overwhelming, now, _blinding_ , and it kept unraveling his thoughts before he could call his power to bear.

Screaming. There was screaming in his head, in a voice that wasn’t his.

_All right, fine, stop! Just stop it! I’ll do whatever you want, just leave him out of this! Let him go! Please!_

Maxwell stopped walking.

Maxwell opened his fingers and let Caleb collapse to the ground in a bruised, bleeding, agonized heap. All at once, Caleb’s head went quiet, and that was a shock all on its own.

Still, it was easier to take in details now. Without the monster adding in more pain on top of the spell still tearing its way through every nerve and inch of him, it was easier to keep his head above water. It was easier to _function_ , and his mind hurried to seize on details while he waited to recover the strength to lift his head. Caleb heard the sound of a lot of earth being moved, the sound of someone else breathing, hurrying footsteps. And then there was another body hovering over his. When Caleb tried to flinch away, a familiar voice shushed him with a fretful sort of gentleness as he was gathered into careful, _warm_ arms. “ _Gods_ , Caleb, what have you been doing to yourself?”

As Caleb blinked his vision free of tears and pain, the face above him resolved itself into that of Mollymauk Tealeaf, with gravesoil still in his hair and tears in his red eyes. He smiled shakily to realize that Caleb was looking at him. “Hey, there,” said the tiefling, his voice rasping and faint. “You with me?” He rested a hand against Caleb’s cheek and even though it came away bloody, Molly looked so relieved. “Still alive. Still…”

Words seemed to fail him, so he suddenly wrapped Caleb in a tight embrace instead, burying his face in Caleb’s shoulder. “It is _so_ good to see you,” Molly said, a muffled sob echoing through the words. “I thought…I mean…”

Moving hurt, breathing hurt, but none of that stopped Caleb from hugging Molly back, clinging to him like he was the only real and good thing left in the world. “I was going to save you,” he mumbled, for lack of anything better to say that mattered worth a damn.

Molly laughed a little, a broken, hysterical sound that was half a sob. “I know. I…I know. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay, Caleb. We’ll make this work, we’ve had worse jobs, we’ll…”

Caleb caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t think anything of it, just lifted his head on instinct to watch, the sound of Molly’s shaky reassurances fading to a meaningless haze in his ears.

Standing just a few feet away, Caleb saw Maxwell, standing there watching them both and smiling so, so smugly. In one hand, he held a vellum portrait of Mollymauk. He was twining a fine, delicate golden chain through the fingers of his other hand.

Recognition came far too late, but Caleb _did_ recognize this spell, a different form but the same words and Molly obviously wasn’t about to see it coming.

 _“No!”_ Caleb roared, struggling out of Molly’s grip, trying to put himself between his friend and the monster, trying to put up a shield or cast a counterspell or do _something_. But the spell wasn’t meant for him, so the shield did nothing. The spell was more powerful than anything he had ever dreamed of, and so his counterspell did nothing.

Thick, heavy chains shot out of the floor by the wall and snaked themselves all around Mollymauk with a merciless swiftness, binding him and dragging him back. Molly cried out in desperate panic, tried to resist, tried to hold on to Caleb like Caleb could do anything to save him. Caleb tried to hold onto him in turn, for all the good it would do. 

But then the chains went taut, and Molly was dragged away so hard that his back hit the wall, before he slumped to his knees, staring at his hands, staring at the new restraints imprisoning him. Caleb could hear his friend breathing hard, already on the verge of hyperventilating, broken up by horrified sobs.

Then, as Caleb watched helplessly, Molly buried his face in his hands and _screamed_. It was the loud, long, broken sound of one who had lost all hope.

Caleb tried to get to his feet, to go to him, to do _something_.

“No. Stay there,” Maxwell said, casting a spell as he brushed by Caleb, and suddenly every aching muscle locked up and Caleb found himself frozen in place, unable even to curse Maxwell for his cruelty.

The vampire might as well have forgotten he was there. His attention was focused entirely on Molly, and Caleb could see that his eyes were alight with that same deliriously gleeful anticipation he’d shown when breaking Caleb’s fingers or half drowning him for fun.

“You didn’t really think it would be that easy, did you, Lucien?” Maxwell asked softly, over the sound of Molly’s desperate, broken whimpering. “You couldn’t really have believed I’d trust you just like that, after all. Of course, I know you meant what you said, you wouldn’t be back above ground if you hadn’t. But I also know what a fickle, faithless man you are. You could just as easily change your mind tomorrow. And I won’t have that, Lucien, I have come too far and worked too hard!”

Caleb couldn’t even wince as Maxwell suddenly, viciously slapped Molly across the face. He couldn’t even look away. But that also meant he saw how Molly barely reacted to being struck, how he just swayed with the force of the impact but otherwise didn’t say anything, barely cried out. His eyes were just empty and glassy and focused on nothing but the chains.

 _His words_ , Caleb realized, feeling sick. _This monster has stolen everything from us and now he has even taken Molly’s words._

He was paralyzed and bleeding and tired and scared but in that moment Caleb Widogast was also so, so _angry._

The anger was like a fire burning hot and bright within him. It felt as if it was spreading throughout his body, returning life and movement and _control_ back to his limbs and even burning away the pain, letting Caleb breathe for the first time since this nightmare had begun and letting him see what had to be done.

Moving slowly and silently as he could, Caleb reached into his pocket, pulled out a strip of leather, and tied it around his thigh. A bright, shimmering shield flickered into life around him as he whispered the magic words. 

“So you are just going to _stay_ down here until I have what I’ve worked so hard for. Those chains should allow you enough room to write. If not, well, we’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll tell whatever shambling mess Caleb turns into to take dictation for you. And here you will remain, Lucien, until either I have what I need, or until one of the gods themselves strikes me down with all his angels!”

Caleb really had been intending to move quietly, attack suddenly, but he just couldn’t help it. He chuckled.

That one sound was enough to get Maxwell to look over his shoulder, to see Caleb up on his knees, taking aim at the vampire’s back, even if he had to steady one arm with the other to do so.

“You really aren’t that smart, are you?” Caleb asked, and fired another round of scorching rays.

One hit, two didn’t, but it bought him a second to struggle back to his feet and dash forward, moving to put himself between Maxwell and Molly. The vampire’s hands glowed black and he made a grab for Caleb, but the mage armor flashed bright around him, knocking the Maxwell's hands just enough to the side that the spell could not touch him. Caleb retaliated with a thunderwave that sent Maxwell stumbling back several feet, buying them both room to breathe.

The first thing he saw was that even the small amount of damage he’d managed already was healing. Caleb hastily considered his options as he went rummaging through his pockets, moving his fingers by memory and never taking his eyes from his foe. He found two useful possibilities just as Maxwell charged at him again, snarling, bringing whatever magic was in his touch to bear once more.

At first Caleb thought that there was no way he could dodge in time, but suddenly the monster’s eyes went black from edge to edge, and blood leaked from them like hell’s own tears. _“Lucien!”_ the monster snarled in rage, clawing at his face with one hand, missing Caleb by a mile with the other after Caleb stepped aside. Caleb couldn’t help but glance back and saw Mollymauk there, still kneeling and chained on the floor but _present_ once more. The tiefling looked furious and determined even as he bled for the curse he’d just laid on the vampire’s head, and as he sensed Caleb looking at him, Molly darted a glance up at him and nodded, just once.

Caleb nodded back, then pulled a stick of licorice root and a vial of holy water out of his pocket. He popped the licorice into his mouth and tore the cork out with his teeth as the world went bright and sharp and _slow_ around him, as Caleb felt energy and vitality and speed surging through his body. It was the easiest thing in the world to race up to Maxwell, splash the holy water in his face, then race back like nothing had happened. Even Maxwell’s screaming seemed to be slowed down. It was almost funny.

Even though he saw the spell coming easily, however, he didn’t know quite what it was and so couldn’t guess which way to move. A blast of frigid cold blew through the air around himself and Molly, followed by enormous chunks of ice and hail falling from the ceiling to batter them both. Caleb was able to duck and dodge quickly enough to avoid the brunt of it, especially with the help of his mage armor. But even then, he felt his hands going numb and his heart going cold as the breath froze in his throat, as he stumbled from the impact where chunks of ice did catch him in the shoulder or the back. Judging from the sounds of it, Molly wasn’t so lucky. Caleb risked a glance back to see his friend trying to protect his head, but that was about all he could manage as he was battered half senseless by the ice storm.

He couldn’t protect Molly like this, not when Maxwell didn’t care about collateral damage. Much as it hurt to admit, the best thing Caleb could do for them both was force the monster to pick a target and make himself the obvious one.

“Be right back,” he murmured, as the storm died down, because he still did not want to dare leave Molly with the impression that Caleb was abandoning him. Then he grabbed another vial out of his pocket and ran. Getting away proved difficult, however, since the floor had gone slick and icy under his feet. Caleb stumbled once, and suddenly Maxwell was on him, grabbing hold of Caleb with hands that glowed black with necromantic energies. Caleb convulsed, screaming, as he yet again felt the life being drained from him and into the vampire and Maxwell hadn’t even had to pierce his throat to do it this time. Dimly, he felt the vial of holy water slip from his momentarily nerveless fingers and shatter on the floor.

He had another one, though.

Caleb grabbed it out then emptied the holy water over Maxwell’s hands. The black light went out and the monster staggered away from him, cradling his hands and howling in pain. _Now you know what it feels like_ , Caleb thought viciously, as he turned and kept running. His ultimate goal was the scroll bins – specifically, the scroll he’d been examining just before everything had gone to hell. He didn’t know what it did. All Caleb knew was that before he’d lost his concentration on his detection spell, that scroll had been glowing with the brightest evocation magic he’d ever seen.

The brutal fact of the matter was that he simply could not outpace Maxwell’s healing alone, especially now that he was out of holy water to disrupt it. The only effect he was really having was making the vampire waste his own magic, and that was not nothing but that also would not bring this fight to an _end_. Caleb would run out of magic first and then Maxwell could simply start breaking bones again while Molly was forced to watch. 

He needed something _big_.

Caleb didn’t know what the spell was, but Maxwell clearly did. His eyes went wide with horror and genuine, honest terror as Caleb unfurled it and held it up and spoke the arcane words he read there. The sheer _power_ held within them was almost enough to make him slump to his knees, the world tilting and spinning around him, but Caleb held his ground and acted on instinct, directing the magic to four points spread throughout the lab and praying to any green-eyed gods that might be listening that this would not hurt Mollymauk.

Just in case it did, as the air went red and hot around them all and Maxwell threw up a shield, Caleb raced back to his friend. He slid to his knees beside the tiefling and wrapped his arms around Molly, shielding him the best he could with his magic and with his body as enormous, blazing orbs of fire took shape in the air and plummeted to the ground all around the lab, hard enough to make the floor shake and the air roar. The tables collapsed in flames, the racks of weapons burned, the scroll bins went up like torches, the floor cracked and buckled from the sheer force of heat and impact, the zombies and thralls turned to dust. And throughout it all, Caleb saw Maxwell Virago, stumbling through the tumult and destruction and screaming in rage and pain.

As the storm died down and the lab was left filled with smoke and the smell of burning wood and burning flesh, Caleb looked up and saw the monster staggering slowly towards them, panting and growling. Moving must have been hard, given how much flesh had been scorched off of Maxwell’s body. His fine, expensive clothes hung in tatters. Caleb felt sure he could see a flash of charred bone here and there, especially around Maxwell’s head where it looked very much like half his face was _gone,_ and smoke still wreathed him as his hair continued to burn.

And for a moment Caleb stared in blind terror and _he was somewhere else, someone weaker, someone making the worst decision of his life, the_ last _decision of his old life. Irreparable, irrevocable, and now it was shambling forward to find him at long last and_ punish _him and he deserved it he had always deserved it…_

Pain shot up Caleb’s arm, brief but sharp. He blinked his vision clear and suddenly he was back on the floor of the lab and it was only an ordinary monster before him, gruesome but real and nothing he should pity and nothing that should scare him.

He stared at Maxwell, then looked down at Molly, noting briefly that a patch of his sleeve was still slightly rumpled where the other man had bitten his arm. Molly was staring intently at Caleb, scanning his face, seeing right through him in that way he’d always had. His red eyes were full of anxiety and _concern_ , even now.

His friend had no words, but that look was familiar. _Time for that later_.

Caleb nodded his understanding and scrambled to his feet as he felt the heat of the burning vampire drawing nearer. As he did so, he saw Maxwell’s remaining eye go dark and blind and bleeding once more. Molly wouldn’t be able to apply that curse again – he was giving Caleb one more chance, one more opening, and Caleb knew he had to take the best possible advantage of it. But _how_ , he was almost out of magic and Maxwell was already starting to heal. He needed more holy water to disrupt that but he was out…

…except he had the next best thing.

Caleb reached down and grabbed for one of Molly’s scimitars. “M-May I borrow this?” he asked, trying not to dwell on what a ridiculous plan this was.

Molly stared up at him, seemed to see Caleb’s plan written on his face, and nodded. Caleb thought he even saw his friend smile for the briefest moment.

Caleb pulled the scimitar free, stumbling back for a moment, trying not to think about the fact that he had never held a blade in his life and this was a poor time to start. But he gripped it tight in both hands and held out the edge for Molly. The other man didn’t hesitate – he couldn’t move his arm much but he was able to move enough to draw it across the blade, opening his flesh and sending blood pouring down the glass edge.

Then that blood exploded into radiant light, coating the blade in holy power. It wouldn’t last long without Molly to hold the sword but it wouldn’t need to.

Caleb hefted the sword and ran forward and didn’t think, didn’t breathe, just _shoved_ it up through Maxwell’s stomach and out his back. Then as the vampire stumbled back from the force of the attack, screaming fit to burst Caleb’s eardrums as the holy energy burned him from the inside out, Caleb _twisted_ the hilt one way and used a mage hand to grab the point of the blade and wrench it the other way, snapping off both ends and leaving the rest of the sword embedded in the vampire’s body.

Then Caleb stumbled back to stand in front of Molly again and almost collapsed on the spot as suddenly all the energy seemed to drain from him in a rush, leaving only exhaustion in its wake, leaving Caleb swaying on the spot under the weight of lethargy.

Damn. It had been nice while it lasted, but the haste spell was over and it had exacted its price. It was all Caleb could do to keep his feet and not betray that newfound weakness to Maxwell. Fortunately, the monster seemed rather distracted scrabbling at the bleeding wound in his stomach where almost a foot of glass was still embedded in his body, trying to pull it out when his fingers were still slick with his own blood and some of his fingers were little more than bone. Caleb felt an echo of relief through his weariness to realize that he had guessed right, and having an injury that Maxwell _couldn’t_ easily heal over was slowing down his regeneration of his other wounds, even if the radiant light surrounding the sword fragments had faded.

But it still probably wouldn’t take him long to realize that there was still very little preventing him from resuming his attempts to simply beat or stab Caleb to death as messily as possible.

Salvation came before that moment arrived, however. A faint _boom_ echoed down into the lab from upstairs. It was followed moments later by the sound of singing, muffled but probably magically amplified, to the point that it was loud enough for Caleb to pick out the words being sung.

He laughed, weak and shaky and so, so relieved. That might just have been the longest twenty minutes of his life.

“You are _really_ going to want to go and see about that,” he said to the vampire. Maxwell had heard the noise, too, and was staring up towards the door with a narrowed, predatory gaze. His head snapped round when Caleb spoke, glaring at them both, fangs bared.

There was a moment when it seemed like the world itself was holding its breath.

Caleb saw the vampire’s gaze slide to the right for a moment, seeking out his collection of scrolls, saw the moment when his foe realized properly that all his scrolls were nothing but a pile of expensive ashes now. Then Maxwell turned and half hobbled, half ran up the steps, out of the lab and back into the house. Caleb flinched as the sound of the door slamming behind him echoed so loudly in the ruined room, as he and Molly were left alone with the last of the fires burning through the tables and racks.

Caleb was about to chase after him, then he took one step and suddenly he was on his knees, the world wavering dizzily around him. _Ah. Right_.

“This…” he said, his voice sounding thick and slow and strange. “This is _very_ _irritating_.”

Behind him, he heard Molly chuckle weakly. The sound brought Caleb back to himself a little, reminded him what still needed to be done.

It still took him a minute or two before he could do much of anything besides look around, but he took that time to assess the situation. There were still a few fires burning in here. That shouldn’t have posed any danger to Molly, but Caleb still couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him here alone amidst fire and smoke and ruin.

He saw his hands moving as if they belonged to a stranger, heard his voice still sounding so slow and weak as he spoke the arcane words. Yet the act of casting magic made him feel stronger, helped chase away the magically induced exhaustion as his equilibrium returned once more. Two small puddles of water bubbled up from nothing in the ground in front of him. From that water rose two small, vaguely humanoid shapes. He felt their attention on him despite their blank faces, awaiting orders, ready to obey his will.

“Put out those fires,” Caleb said, pointing around the lab. “Then protect Mollymauk.” He pointed back at the tiefling, then swallowed before he gave the next order. “If anyone but myself or a blue tiefling or a ginger cat comes down here, _stop them._ ”

It was a useless order – Beau, Fjord, or Nott could dispatch two minor elementals like this easily enough, even on their own. But it was _something_.

Caleb struggled back to his feet, then reached into his pocket and pulled out Jester’s pearl of power. He rolled it through his fingers, spoke the command word, and felt arcane energy spark from it and into him. It wasn’t much, but he knew he would need all the magic he could get for the fight ahead.

He was about to start for the stairs when Molly made a small, lost, _wounded_  sound behind him. Caleb stopped and looked to see his friend staring at him with wide, scared eyes, and he felt his heart break.

“Molly…” Caleb said shakily, turning back and hurrying over to kneel before the other man. “I, I have to go. It’s Jester, she is _here._ We are going to kill him and fix everyone and…”

He didn’t know if Molly was hearing anything he was saying. There were tears in the tiefling’s eyes and he was starting to hyperventilate again and he was _staring_ at Caleb in desperation and pleading until all of a sudden Molly reached out and pulled Caleb close, clinging to him with all the strength he had left. Caleb gasped as he was seized in the embrace, as Molly buried his face against Caleb’s chest and started speaking, repeating the same thing over and over again in a low, broken voice.

It took Caleb a second to realize what the words were, but then he did, and he had to swallow back tears of his own. He didn’t know much Infernal, but he’d learned a little more in his time here and that was enough to understand.

_“Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me…”_

Hating himself for it, Caleb carefully pulled himself free from Molly’s grip, then rested his hands on either side of the other man’s face to make sure their gazes held. “Then we are going to get you out of here,” he said, his voice rough with the effort of keeping himself under control. “But before any of that can happen I _have_ to go to her.” He kissed Molly’s forehead. “It will be all right, Mollymauk. This will all be over soon. I promise.”

He didn’t know if Molly believed it. Caleb didn’t know if _he_ believed it.

But when he pulled away, Molly let him go. When Caleb turned away, Molly made no sound.

That didn’t make it any easier to leave his friend there in the remnants of the fire and the fading smoke. But Caleb made himself leave anyway. They all still had miles to go, and he couldn’t let Jester face this monster alone.


	15. The Drawing of Battle Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester sings a song and kicks the door down. Fjord notices more than he should and has questions. Battle lines are drawn for the final struggle, but unfortunately some of the Mighty Nein don’t get the chance to pick their own sides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder as we get closer to the end - I consider DND mechanics to be a fine and interesting spice to add to fanfic, but if I've missed something, or if a contradictory detail has come up in later episodes, please don't tell me. I appreciate that you want to help but all it does is stress me out, especially if it's a detail that the fic unravels without.

_“I hear her sheets are made of gold! Her bed will make you sing!”_

Jester sang out, magnifying her voice with Thaumaturgy so that it echoed all throughout the yard and, hopefully, into the house. She was attracting a lot of attention so far, which was good, but it was all of the undead variety. More specifically, it was of the wrong undead variety.

Caleb hadn’t shown up after twenty minutes. Maybe she should have given him a little more time, but Caleb would not have been willingly late. Even accounting for how long it might have taken him to lure someone outside, she had to believe he would have known better than to worry her by delaying. Anything could have happened if he was late. So she wasn’t waiting. And she planned on making a ruckus so that Maxwell would be drawn to her and far away from Caleb, perhaps even so that Caleb would know that she was here and worried. Maybe even her friends would hear that she was alive and come out to investigate and she wouldn’t have to fight them at all.

_“One touch from her, you’ll find yourself back in her arms again!”_

But for now, Jester sang out as she made her way across the yard, moving from her hiding place and to the front door. Her way was somewhat slower than she would have liked because she kept having to stop to kill zombies and skeletons. She probably could have just left them to it, but Caleb had said it would be bad to get sneaked up on, right? It didn’t take her long anyway – she swung with her axe and let her duplicate fire off bolts of sacred flame and all the while Jester sang out in a loud, booming voice. They were stronger than she had a feeling zombies should be, but still nowhere near as strong as her.

_"She never bores, she's much adored! And she'll please you to your core! The Ruby of the Sea is the best lay ever!"_

She sort of wished she could make her duplicate harmonize with her, but even if she'd known how, it probably wouldn't have been a good idea to distract her.

The two of them made their slow and steady way around the house to the front door, leaving a trail of newly dead corpses in their wake. Jester finally saw the front door coming up and grinned to herself, gearing up to take a run at it and kick it down.

_"If you're bored go find a..."_

"Jester?!"

Jester stumbled to a stop mid-runup, arms pinwheeling for an embarrassing moment. Once she'd recovered her balance, she hefted her axe, looked left, looked right, then finally thought to look up.

Then she felt her heart soar with joy, and couldn't help but beam. "Fjord!" She waved up at him happily, and directed her duplicate to do the same.

He had opened a window on the second floor and was half-hanging out of it to get a decent look at her. And he was staring down at her like she was an angel descended from Celestia. "You're...you're..."

It took her a second to remember why he sounded like he was about to cry. "I'm alive, yep! That stupid vampire was lying to you! You should come down so I can tell you all about it. Oh! Or I could come up to you? I was gonna go kick the door down but, like, I have a grappling hook..."

She pulled off her haversack to go rummaging for it, then winced when she heard her copy fire off another burst of radiant energy. Right. It still wasn't technically safe out here. Jester hastily replaced the haversack on her back, readied her axe, and went to go help dismember the zombie.

"Uh, maybe you shouldn't do that?" Fjord called down to her, a touch hesitantly. "They really just, y'know, do the gardening, help clean up..."

Jester made a frustrated sort of sound and shook blood off her axe. "They are  _zombies_ , Fjord! They are very, very bad things! Just like the guy who made them!"

"I mean, I know that's usually supposed to be how it works, but..."

"Come down and stop me, then." She rested her axe over her shoulders and winked up at him. She was pretty sure she saw Fjord blush from here, but he smiled instead of lecturing her any further and so that was definitely a good sign.

"I'm just...I'm so glad you're alive. Look, I know we've got a lot to talk about. I'm gonna go find the other three. We'll, uh, we'll meet you downstairs, how about that?"

"Perfect!" Jester offered him a thumbs up. "Be right there!"

Fjord nodded, then hurried away from the window. Jester took another look around to make sure that there were no other zombies or skeletons creeping up on her, then turned her attention back to the front door.

"Now, where was I? Oh! Right."

She started for the door at a dead run and used her momentum to execute a flying kick to it that sent it slamming open and knocked it off one hinge, getting her inside nicely. Jester took a deep breath, magnified her voice again, and sang for hopefully the entire house to hear.  _"If you're bored, go find a whore, you know this woman's worth much more! The Ruby of the Sea is the best lay ever!"_

Then she took another look around. There wasn't anything terribly interesting in the entrance hall, but there were two flights of stairs leading up one floor. Fjord had been leaning out a second floor window, so that seemed the place to start. Jester hurried towards the righthand stairway and started up the steps at a run, her doppelganger following close behind.

She felt a presence take shape behind her as she made the top of the stairs, just before she heard the unpleasant organic sound of a neck being broken. Jester whirled around to see her lifeless duplicate collapsing into nothing, and behind her was a charred, burned monster in the tattered ruins of expensive clothes.

"Oh," said Maxwell Virago, very quietly. "Wrong one."

Jester didn't waste any time on words - she simply shot a guiding bolt at his chest. He was already shooting a spray of some green and sizzling poison towards her. She threw up an arm to protect her face before they both got hit, the magic causing pain but obviously not slowing either of them down. It barely made her wince, barely earned a growl from him, though Jester wasn't sure she had any magic in her to top whatever had already been done to him. Anything would pale in comparison to  _that_.

That didn't mean she couldn't try, though. She knew that holy magic would interrupt a vampire’s healing, that just meant she needed to keep up the pressure to carry on whatever good work had already been done. Jester attempted to do so by calling up another barrage of spirit guardians to aid her.

Maxwell’s one remaining eye went wide with an apparently genuine fear that might have been comical if it wasn’t so satisfying. Unfortunately, her friends were only able to get a few good cuts in before he spoke a word that echoed with magical power and suddenly just…wasn’t there anymore.

 _“Motherfucker!”_ Jester swore, swinging her axe this way and that, slicing it through the spirits that didn’t seem to mind as they continued swirling about the area, hunting for their prey.  _“Get back here!”_  But they found nothing, and neither did she – not even mist, not even bats. He was just  _gone_.

Either he had turned impressively invisible and she was about to die at any second, just like her duplicate, or he’d somehow teleported away from her. Jester put her back to the wall for thirty seconds, keeping her axe in front of her and her guardians flittering through the air like wasps until she was reasonably sure the answer wasn’t the former.

That meant it was the latter, which was good! That meant Maxwell was weak enough that even a taste of holy magic was enough to send him running. That meant that he was scared of her. Of course, now she had to track him down in an unfamiliar mansion, but all in all it could have been worse.

Jester set off down the hall at a run, singing for anyone living or dead to hear.

*  *  *

 _Damn_ , this hurt.

He was not a man accustomed to pain. He hadn’t had to be for years now. Normally he could punish and kill anything that meant him harm long before it was able to carry it out. Even when something did manage to strike him with weapons or magic, he could heal in a matter of seconds. But now this  _wretched_  body was working so hard to try and heal around the broken sword jammed through his torso that it wasn’t healing the more painful damage to his  _face_ and the rest of him that had gotten burnt half to dust by Caleb’s little rebellion. Caleb shouldn’t even have had that much magic left after Maxwell had kept him from getting any rest, what the hell had he  _done_ …

Trying to pull out the sword on his own just wasn’t happening, not when those fingers he still had in one piece were made slick and useless with his own blood, not when his flesh kept trying to knit shut around it, not when it  _hurt_  so much to try. On top of that, he was sure he still looked a fright. Nevermind. His friends shouldn’t care.

Which was good, because things had gotten surprisingly  _difficult_ in a hurry. The secondary alarm he’d left in the basement had woken him up, so he’d been missing some magic even before he’d gone to investigate. Now he was down even more magic than he’d been before, Caleb was still alive, and now some _wretched_  blue demon was running around his house killing his servants. So Maxwell knew he himself might soon need all the friends he could get.

His contingency spell had fired off when he’d spoken the command word, allowing him to teleport up into his study on the third floor. He had to hope the servants he had left would slow her down while he regrouped. His store of scrolls was gone, but at least he was able to retrieve the sword and enchanted bracers he kept in the study for emergencies. Then he left to hunt for his friends as quickly as he could, because there was no denying that all the servants he had left would do nothing to  _stop her_. Damn it all to all the hells, he’d torn that wretched temple down in the first place so he wouldn’t have to deal with the gods and their pets.

As he hurried briskly through the halls, calling out for Fjord or Beau or Nott, Maxwell took a moment to draw what little magic he could from his enhanced pearl of power and his improved spell storage ring. He’d already drawn on them a little before heading down into the lab, but there was enough arcane energy remaining to power a couple more spells if the need arose, and it looked like the need would very soon be arising.

Speaking of, there they were, coming down the hall towards him and talking intently to one another. How convenient. Here they were and he hadn’t even had to waste a spell or try another floor. Wonderful. Finally something was going his way today.

Nott noticed him coming even before Maxwell opened his mouth. She looked up, and he saw her eyes go even bigger. “S _hit!_ ” Nott swore vehemently, reaching back to tug on Beauregard’s sleeve. Beauregard and Fjord both looked around, saw the state Maxwell was in, and hurried over to see to him.

“What the fuck happened?” Beau asked, looking him over.

“Caleb happened,” Maxwell growled, teeth gritted from the pain. That was a risky thing to say. Even he wasn’t entirely sure he could sell them on the fact of the matter with just the strength of his own natural influence. But damn it, he was angry and he wanted Caleb dead and of course they should see how violent their former friend was capable of being. Of course they would understand that Caleb had stepped absolutely out of line.

Sure enough, he saw them exchanging anxious looks, and Maxwell bit back a growl because there were more important things happening right now than the questions he could see them burning to ask. He forced a smile instead – steady, steady. No call to go losing control just because one of his pets had turned out to have a bit more bite than he’d thought. “But really, that’s a discussion for later. I’m afraid I need your help. As I’m sure you can see...” He gestured at his own chest. His back had started to heal with agonizing slowness, leaving perhaps a half-inch of the scimitar protruding from his flesh. “I am in, ah, a bit of a state at the moment.”

“No kidding,” said Beauregard. But they understood his meaning and his need plainly enough. She and Fjord moved to hold him steady while Nott moved to take careful hold of the chunk of broken glass, wriggling and squirming and shifting to work it out of him. It was a frankly  _agonizing_  process, and Maxwell was sure that he probably said some frightfully impolite things as pain lit up his body and burned through him as sure as any of Caleb’s flames. But nevermind if he did. His friends should understand that he wasn’t quite himself.

Besides, if the process of having the sword removed was an indescribable agony, the moment when it finally slid free of his flesh was an indescribable relief. Maxwell let out a long, shuddering sigh as he felt himself finally free to  _heal_ , inside and out, and he could feel himself doing so rapidly.

Nott dropped the broken glass once it was free of him. Beau went to check on the little goblin’s hands, and Fjord went to pick up the bloodstained blade for further examination. Maxwell left them to it and just tried to catch his breath, reviewing his possessions and his remaining stores of magic and his  _options_.

“Maxwell?” said Fjord. “I have some questions.”

Maxwell bit back a growl, staring down at his hands and willing them to heal faster. “Do you think now is  _really_  the time, Fjord?”

“Actually, yeah. I think it’s a  _great_   fucking time,” said Fjord, and Maxwell heard a flash of energy, heard Beau and Nott gasp, and looked up to see that the  _wretched_ half-orc had summoned his falchion and was pointing it at Maxwell’s chest.

“Fjord!” Nott squawked. “What are you doing?!”

“Hey, maybe we should all try and chill...?” Beau added cautiously, holding up her hands and trying to step between her two friends. Fjord very deliberately stepped around her, and Beau proved herself  _uselessly_  at a loss for stopping him, just staring in helpless, empty confusion at her ally.

“Here’s the thing,” Fjord said, steel in his voice. “I saw Frumpkin earlier. Caleb tried to tell me I was seeing things, that it wasn’t his cat, and he still looked like hell so I didn’t want to fight him on it. I know he was lying to me, now. I don’t know  _why,_ but now I know for sure that was Frumpkin because I also know I saw  _Jester_  out there chopping off zombie heads. That would be shady as fuck all on its own,  _Max_ , but now I see that you just got stabbed with  _one of Molly’s swords_.”

Now Beau’s eyes had gone wide. “One of...no way,” she whispered.

Fjord held out the broken blade to her without taking his eyes away from Maxwell. “Take a look for yourself and tell me if you know anybody else who fights with  _glass scimitars_.”

Beau took the bloody chunk of glass carefully in hand and turned it over and over, examining it intently. Nott stood up on tip toes to join her.

“We don’t,” said the goblin, very quietly.

“We really don’t,” said Beau, looking up to glare at Maxwell as insolently as Fjord was. “You said that Molly was  _dead_  so who the  _fuck_  had one of his swords to stab you with?”

“Jester turned out to be alive. Maybe Mollymauk is, too,” Nott added, and the little rat was  _actually_  starting to pull a dagger.

Maxwell took a couple of steps back, bracing himself and hastily trying to piece together details.  _Jester, Jester..._ where had he heard that name? It clicked after another crucial second, though the reality of the situation just became that much more impossible. The one Caleb had helped escape! That had been  _her?_  She’d put herself in such danger after getting away clean? It was such a ridiculous idea that he might have laughed aloud if Fjord hadn’t looked so deadly serious.

This really was  _unacceptable_. How had everything gone to hell so quickly? Maxwell let out a long, frustrated sigh that somehow twisted itself in his throat into an unfortunately beastly  _snarl_. He saw them all take a step back, even Fjord. It felt good to let loose, though. It felt good to be able to take his anger out on someone that wouldn’t fight back - or at least, on someone who would stop fighting back in a moment.

“There really is a very simple explanation,” Maxwell said, lifting his head and smiling at them all. “But the fact of the matter is that I don’t have to tell you. I have neither them time nor the patience for explanations, and the fact that you think you can threaten them out of me is really quite amusing.”

Then, before Fjord had any time to argue the point any further, Maxwell lunged forward, grabbed the half-orc by the face, and shoved a spell of domination into him. Dimly, he could hear Beau and Nott shouting in alarm, but that didn’t matter. They would be quiet soon, too.

Such a spell took actual magical effort from him, as opposed to the charm he could lay down easy as blinking. But he’d just gotten a little power back anyway and besides, this would prevent irritating questions and the need for explanations good enough to talk the three of them into killing their two former friends…

...or at least it would if this  _wretched brute of a half-orc_  didn’t resist him.

Maxwell’s eyes went wide as he felt Fjord struggle under the weight of the domination before throwing it off entirely. That shouldn’t have happened. Of all of them, Fjord should have been the most susceptible. His will was weak, he was already bound to a greater power as it was, but the half-orc threw off Maxwell’s attempts to take full control and as he watched the warlock’s eyes cleared entirely for the first time in days.

 _Every dog has its day,_  Maxwell thought bitterly to himself, as Fjord let out a roar of fury and swung the falchion at his neck. Even the simplest fool could get  _lucky_  sometimes.

He took the slash on his newly healed arm, cursed aloud, then retaliated with a phantasmal killer in Fjord’s mind instead. His luck didn’t hold out the second time.

Seeing Fjord drop to his knees, screaming and lashing out at nothing, seemed to shake Beauregard and Nott out of their shock.  _“Bastard!”_ Beauregard snarled, darting around Fjord and aiming a flurry of blows at Maxwell. He dodged most of them, shook off her attempts to paralyze him with the strikes that did connect, and dominated her instead. She wasn’t so lucky. She didn’t resist, or at least she didn’t resist well enough.  _Stand to attention_ , he ordered her, and she did.

Nott was backing away far more rapidly now, her gaze darting from him to Fjord to Beauregard and seeing that she had few options left. Finally, with a yelp of fright, she turned and started sprinting away, down the hall, calling for Jester, for Caleb.  _Catch her_ , Maxwell commanded, and Beauregard went from still to sprinting in an instant, catching up with Nott easily, stunning her with a few well-placed blows, and then swinging the goblin up into a half nelson as Maxwell sauntered closer at a more sedate pace. As he did so, he pulled his greater pearl of power free from his pocket and rolled it through his fingers for a moment, speaking the command word. He’d hoped to get a better return on his investment for these three, but no matter. Two out of three would have to suffice.

He saw Nott’s eyes clear as the stun wore off, the hostility she’d just endured at his will serving to properly undo the charm. No matter. He’d take care of that in a moment.

“Y-You…” she stammered, staring up at him with huge, round eyes. He saw her struggling to remember, and the shock was slowly replaced by rage. Her efforts to escape grew more pronounced, but now she looked like she was ready to leap at him rather than flee. “You...and Caleb, you  _did_  that, you...”

“ _Hush_ ,” Maxwell ordered, and bent her mind to his will, too. It was hard, harder than it should have been, like trying to catch a rat with one hand. For a moment, he feared she might shake him off, too. She really was just that  _angry_  at him.

But Maxwell was faster, stronger,  _better_ , and so in the end he caught up her mind and her will and choked the resistance out of it until nothing was left but obedience, until she went slack and silent in Beauregard’s arms.

 _Put her down_ , Maxwell told Beauregard, and she did. Nott stood quietly, staring up at him with empty eyes once more, awaiting her orders.

 _Good,_ he purred to her in the privacy of their minds.  _I have an especially important task for you_.

He told her what it was. By the time he was done, Maxwell could hear the sound of footsteps pounding up one of the stairwells, along with angry shouting.  _Go,_  he told Nott. Without any hesitation, she turned away and scurried off down the hall, deliberately away from the sound of Jester’s approach, seeking another way downstairs.  _Come with me,_  Maxwell told Beauregard, as he turned and grabbed the struggling, thrashing Fjord by the back of his shirt for the sake of dragging him along.  _We have a guest to greet._

*  *  *

Jester really,  _really_  hoped that this was the last she would have to deal with zombies for a while. She was absolutely sick of dead things, and had left another messy trail of them behind her as she made her way upstairs, calling for any of her friends that could hear her.

Unfortunately, one particular bastard of a dead thing was still standing. She meant to see that this wasn’t the case for long. Reviewing Caleb’s findings over and over again in her mind, Jester stumbled up the stairs to the third floor and took in the scene.

No one had answered her. She hadn’t seen anyone living on her way up, and she didn’t see anyone now. But after Jester took off at a run once more, calling out for her friends and shouting all the ways she was going to kill Maxwell Virago, she turned a corner and saw Fjord being dragged into a room a few yards ahead.

“Fjord!” Jester called, sprinting after him. She almost ran right past the room in her haste, but caught herself on the doorframe and stopped to take in the scene.

There stood Maxwell Virago. He was already more recognizable since he’d had a few precious minutes to start healing. At some point, he’d also acquired a longsword that was shining with a dark, oily sort of light in the dimness of the room.

Beside him stood Beau. Even from here, even at a glance, Jester could see how empty the monk’s eyes were, how her will was not her own. She could tell that much even before she saw the way Beau was holding a motionless Fjord half-off the ground, with her arms around his head and neck in a way that made her look poised to break it.

Fjord wasn’t moving. There was fresh blood around his mouth and nose and eyes. For a horrifying second Jester thought she might have come too late, but no, no, she could see him breathing. He seemed semi-conscious at best, but that was  _something_.

But that still meant she was standing alone against this monster and that had never been the plan.

“Hello, Jester,” said Maxwell, smiling a thin, cold sort of smile. “Ah, ah!” He lifted his blade and pointed it at her chest as she started forward, and out of the corner of her eye Jester saw Beau shift menacingly. “Move another step and I’ll tell Beauregard to make an end to this half-orc. As she is right now, she won’t even blink. She  _will_  obey, I promise you that. Step back, step back…good girl, just there is fine. I think the two of us are long overdue for a chat, wouldn’t you agree?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot claim credit for the lyrics to "The Ruby of the Sea is the Best Lay Ever" . That honor goes to kayleave on reddit and her good good ukelele jams. Check her out here! https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalrole/comments/83j8rr/spoilers_c2e08_ruby_of_the_sea_song_i_was/


	16. Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nott fulfills her mission. Caleb comes to the end of the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short chapter today, and sadly I'm also going to be taking a few days off from posting again so I can make sure that The Ultimate Final Battle is everything it should be. Thanks in advance for understanding! Next chapter should be up Thursday or Friday.
> 
> As always, please do make sure to take a glance through the tags before you proceed, sometimes I add new ones.

“Jester!” Caleb called as he hurried back up into the entrance hall. “Jester, where are you?!”

The front door was hanging off one hinge. He poked his head outside, just in case, but all he saw were a lot of dismembered or burned zombie corpses. She’d come this way and then probably moved on deeper into the house.

Everything hurt and he was running low on magic but whatever he had left, Caleb was determined to use to help her. But he had to make sure she got the finishing blow on Maxwell, he  _had_ to.

“‘A god himself with all his angels’,” Caleb muttered to himself as he raced for the lefthand staircase and up to the second-floor hallway. Molly had been released from his tomb after agreeing to give his full support to Maxwell. But there had to have been more to it than that. Molly was not a stupid man. Being buried alive for so many days must have weighed on him beyond measure - Caleb had to believe that Molly would have said anything to get out. A promise did not have to be given sincerely…unless something in the magic mandated it.

“No magic is absolute.” And if his research up to now had been accurate, Caleb had gotten the sense that the more powerful the magic, the greater the potential for loopholes and backfiring. There always had to be a weak point, whether to dispelling by another mage or even some more obscure method open to anyone. That way, mortals did not become as gods, for better or worse.

What Caleb had been able to sense of that spell had left him certain that dispelling it was beyond him. But what if there were other conditions for release? It certainly seemed like the sort of thing Maxwell would do, to leave Molly’s fate entirely in his hands, to leave him with the knowledge that the sooner he broke, the sooner he would be free. _You can tell me when to stop whenever you’d like. You know that. You know what I want._

Caleb didn’t know if such conditions were truly required, but whether by necessity or arrogance or simple thoughtlessness, Maxwell had added another to the second casting.  _A god himself with all his angels_. He turned the words over and over again in his mind as he stalked down the hall. He had never been a godly man, but as far as he knew, “angel” was simply a rather archaic term for a servant of a deity. Some were called angels, some weren’t, but they all served the same purpose.

And what was a god’s servant but something chosen and _made_ by that god? How better to describe Jester? The Traveler did not have many worshippers, but even by those standards, Jester was something more than that.

Magically enforced stipulations did not always have to behave as the caster wished them to. Loopholes could go both ways.

More importantly, Caleb still did not know if he could believe in gods. But he knew he believed in her.

He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts and planning that he almost didn’t hear the sound of footsteps. Then his wits caught up with him, and he realized that not only was someone coming down the steps, but that the sound of their footsteps was familiar.

“Nott?” Caleb whispered, staring up until she came into view, moving quickly. His heart stuttered with relief as he moved to meet her, reaching for her hand. “Nott, listen! Jester is here, she is alive. I can explain more later but we have to…”

She looked up at the sound of his voice.

Her eyes, the blessedly familiar eyes of his best friend, were utterly empty.

That was all he had time to realize before she pulled out a dagger and lunged for him, quick as a cat. Fortunately, it was all he needed to realize – moving on instinct, Caleb threw up his arms and threw out a shield. She collided with it with enough force to leave sparks crackling in the air, trying to get enough momentum to carve through it and into him. But the spell won out, and Nott was forced back, thudding hard against the stairs before scrambling to her feet.

Caleb was already backing up, feeling numb and cold with horror, shaking his head at the _unfairness_ of it all. This wasn’t fair, this wasn’t _right_. He’d fought so hard and survived so much and so much of that had been for her and this could _not_ be how it ended.

He was so, so tired.

“Nott,” Caleb begged, and his voice broke on the sound of her name. He raised his hands to defend himself with no idea how he could possibly do that. “Nott, _please_.”

If she heard him, she gave no sign. Nott simply darted forward once more, utterly silent, dagger at the ready. He was out of shields, but he still had his mage armor – it flashed around him as he dodged clumsily, deflecting the blow just enough to spare him. He followed it up by lashing out with his fist, punching her in the face in a desperate attempt to keep her back and get more distance. He felt his fist connect, heard her yelp as she staggered a few more paces back, and felt sick with himself.

“Nott!” he called out to her, trying to blink past the tears of frustration and grief in his eyes. “Nott, _listen to me!_ You are stronger than this, I know you are! If you can hear me at all I know you can stop this!”

Did she hesitate for just a moment, or was he deluding himself? Either way, she did not stop. She was clearly determined to complete her mission and carry out Maxwell’s will.

He could not let it end this way, he did not want this, _this was not right_.

His palms began to smolder and smoke. In the depths of despair, Caleb’s magic – which had saved him and doomed him so many times – acted on its own and he was powerless to do anything but let it flow through him. He had almost no spells left to him, and as he trembled with fear and exhaustion, the magic had its own idea of what this spell would be. _"Vergib mir,"_ he whispered, for all that it mattered now. His voice was little more than a hoarse sob. 

Fire burst forth from his hands, so hot that it was nearly white, spreading across the floor in front of him to form a wall between him and her. Nott did step back again, and he was momentarily relieved to see that.

Then he saw her eyes, glassy and glowing in the flames, and knew that even this would not stop her.

One spell left, and then he was down to cantrips and that was as good as nothing. As Nott charged forth through the flames, Caleb lifted his hand from his coat pocket and licked a drop of molasses from his fingers. She slowed down just before her knife could meet his chest, and he was able to bat her arm aside and avoid harm once again.

She was moving slow enough to let him see that the hem of her cloak and the edges of her sleeves were now burning. Her hair was smoldering. He had burned Nott, _he had burned Nott_. His little sister, his most important person, the one he was willing to burn the world _for_ and he had done this…

Horror and shock and shame almost made him retreat into his own head again.

It was a minor miracle that he was able to turn and run instead, as fast as his legs and his bleeding, exhausted, empty body could carry him. Caleb Widogast fled from the sight of her, from his helplessness and his loss and the unfairness of it all.

A miracle did not come again. Nott was a very good shot, and did not need her daggers to kill him. He remembered that too late, a scant second after he heard the taut sound of a bowstring being loosed.

An explosion of pain took Caleb right between the shoulder blades as he was hurrying back down the stairs into the entrance hall. He stumbled, missed a step, and tumbled heavily to the floor below, finally rolling to a stop in an ungainly, bleeding heap. Only then did he realize his concentration had shattered, as he heard the sound of newly quickened steps chasing after him.

The little goblin leaped down after him, dagger at the ready. Caleb was just pushing himself up, had just enough time to meet her empty yellow gaze as she closed with him. “Nott…?”

She brought the dagger down into his chest with the sound of meat being butchered. Then she tore it out and stabbed him again, again, again, and each one tore a scream of pain from him. She didn’t even flinch. His mad, desperate, animal attempts to throw her off, to _stop her,_ might as well have not even been happening at all. She shoved him back down and drove the blade into his gut and twisted. She had always, always been stronger than him in so many ways.

Finally, seemingly satisfied at last that he was dying, that her job was done, Nott stepped back and stared down at him dispassionately. Moving hurt, breathing hurt, but Caleb still forced himself to lift an arm and clench bloodstained fingers in her sleeve.

“Nott...” he rasped. “ _Schwester_. It’s all right, this was not you, I...I am not angry. This was not your doing, not truly.” His voice broke on a sob. His vision was blurring, his cheeks were wet, and he did not care that he was crying here at the end of his life. This was too important. _She_ was too important. “I, I want you to remember that, Nott, _please_...”

Then the blood bubbled up too high in his throat to allow for speech any longer, and he convulsed, coughing, retching it all over the floor.

He felt her shake his hand off. He didn’t hear her walk away over the throbbing in his ears and his own labored, desperate breathing, but when he looked up again she was gone. Good. For everything else that she had been forced to do, he was glad she would not be forced to watch him die.

He did try to move. He didn’t know why and he didn’t get far before even crawling was beyond him. Maybe it was the thought of all he had left undone. Maybe the thought of his friends drove him on. They were still in trouble. He still had to save them.

But Jester was still fighting. The idea that she had failed was incomprehensible. Jester was still fighting, Jester was strong enough for all of them. She would save them. If he believed in nothing else here at the end, he believed in her.  

Caleb held on to that thought, as he slumped bonelessly back down to the floor and waited for the pain to stop.


	17. United We Stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester fights a vampire. Fjord, Beau, and eventually Nott all help.

Jester wasn’t really listening to anything Maxwell was saying. He didn’t seem to have noticed. She was pretty sure he was going on some long, drawn out tangent about how he’d let her leave with Beau and Fjord and she should be grateful for that. In other words, he was talking useless nonsense.

As he talked, she kept her eyes on Fjord. She had a plan, but a lot of that was going to depend on him and if she was guessing right. The more the monster talked, the more time he had to heal. She had to act fast, but only if…

There. Fjord finally seemed to come awake long enough to feel her gaze on him. He opened his eyes properly and was able to focus on her. Maxwell wasn’t looking at him, Beau wasn’t in a position to notice, but Jester did. She bit back a smile – half-orcs really were hard to keep down, and she loved that fiercely about him there and then. She didn’t know if he’d been playing dead the entire time, but he was now, and he was waiting on her word.

“Beau,” Jester said, cutting off Maxwell’s monologuing. “I need you to listen to me, okay? Okay. I need you to _calm down right now_.”

She heard Maxwell gasp softly as he realized the words were more than words. She saw Beau’s arms tense as she was silently ordered to break Fjord’s neck. But then, moving surprisingly quickly for a man half dead, Fjord grabbed hold of her arms, straining to hold her back just long enough for Jester’s spell to take hold.

All at once, Beau’s eyes cleared. “Wha…huh?” she stammered, before staring around and staring down at Fjord and then suddenly shoving Fjord behind her as Maxwell closed in with a snarl of rage. His sword opened a long, bloody gash on her arm, but Jester saw her bracers flash and take enough of the impact that Beau could still retaliate with a vicious flurry of blows.

Jester hurried around the edge of the fray and over to Fjord where her friend was struggling to his feet. “We’ve only got a minute,” she whispered to him as he summoned his falchion. “Then she’ll be under his control again!”

“If he doesn’t knock her out of it first,” Fjord muttered back. She laid her hands against his back, carefully out of the way of the jagged, icy armor that was taking shape around him, and offered what healing she could.

She wished she could have asked him to stay back, but Beau was already finding herself on the defensive, forced to duck and weave and dodge the dark magic surrounding the blade being used to harry her with supernatural speed. She was already bleeding from half a dozen wounds and it was clearly only thanks to her own agility and her enchanted bracers that there weren’t half a dozen more. When Fjord hurried over to help her, at least Beau could shift her focus towards keeping Maxwell from hitting Fjord, stunning and staggering him while Fjord slashed with his falchion and disrupted Maxwell’s concentration with the Armor of Agathys’ cold.

Jester clasped her hands before her and quickly prayed. Another barrage of spirit guardians formed around her, spreading throughout the area to cover the room in a blanket of flittering lights that sliced and scythed through Maxwell, making his flesh sizzle and smoke as his regeneration was suppressed. Fjord added necromantic energy to the cloud of holy light by shooting a black ray from his fingertips that took Maxwell square in the chest as he was trying to grapple with Beau. The spell made the monster convulse and wither visibly before Jester’s eyes, howling in pain. Beau made a disgusted sound and kicked Maxwell away from her, though he was able to cut deep into her side before he staggered back.

Fjord shot an eldritch blast at Maxwell’s back just as the guardian of faith materialized before the monster to stab him through the front. Jester summoned her spiritual weapon to hit him upside the head for good measure, but arcane magic flashed through the air just above Maxwell and her blow was deflected at the last minute. Maxwell retaliated by shooting a globule of acid that struck Fjord in the chest. Jester caught herself holding her breath, but Fjord stayed standing, though clearly only just.

Maxwell tried to move in to finish him off. “Not today, motherfucker!” Beau snarled, leaping forward to grapple him, wrenching the vampire’s arms back in a half-nelson. She was only able to hold him for a moment before Maxwell threw her off, but it gave Jester’s spirit guardians enough time to do more damage, it gave Fjord time to step back.

Unfortunately, Maxwell then decided to retaliate by shooting the same black beam of blighting energy at Beau. Beau’s bracers flashed, deflecting most of the harm, but enough got through. Jester gasped in horror as she heard Beau scream in agony, as she saw Beau’s chest and face wither and crack, bleeding through with dark energy as the monk swayed and slumped to her knees. Maxwell raised his sword for the killing blow but Jester was already charging forward. _“No you don’t!”_

She raised her axe to catch the sword on the downswing, the air between them crackling as magic met magic. Jester could already see that the enchantment on Maxwell’s blade was far stronger than hers’. Her arms were straining with effort within seconds but Jester was able to force him back just enough to dance aside so that the vampire’s blade thudded harmlessly into the floor. She saw a flash of green before another jet of acid hit her in the face and it was all Jester could do to keep the spirit guardians present and get it out of her eyes before she went blind. She felt the air around her coalesce with cold and knew that Fjord was protecting her. She heard Beau swearing as the monk struggled back to her feet.

Jester got her vision clear just in time for it to go white. The air around them suddenly exploded with bitter cold, as jagged chunks and shards of ice rained from the air around them. Jester managed to stand tall even as her vision went white, obscured by the ice, even as she heard her friends cry out with pain beyond her sight. She sent out a prayer of healing into the room anyway, trying desperately to heal the hurt before it could finish them off.

The guardian’s sword flashed down over her head, lashing out at something…behind her.

That was all Jester had time to realize before she was suddenly grabbed from behind. She felt her head yanked back and fangs buried in her throat as Maxwell immediately began to drain the blood from her.

Jester tried to cry out, but somehow her voice left her as little more than a breathless, broken gasp, like Maxwell was draining even the air from her lungs. Who knew if the others heard her, who knew if they were even still alive? She struggled desperately, trying to break his grip or even loosen it at all, but he only growled and held on tighter, fixed to Jester like a leech as he gulped down her blood.

As her vision went grey and her ears were filled with a distant rushing, Jester could hear the others shouting, but somehow knew they wouldn’t be able to save her in time. There was one spell that could, one spell she had left that was strong enough, she just had to lift her arms even though they felt heavy as lead all of a sudden…

For a moment, her strength failed.

Then the fragment of possibility burned up within her, lending one last surge of energy to her limbs, allowing Jester to work one arm free for just a moment. With the last of her strength she was able to reach back and grab Maxwell by the face and scream _“Fuck off!”_

And then he was gone. His arms vanished from around her, his fangs vanished from her throat, his cold and awful presence was gone from her back. Without the support his grip had offered as he slowly killed her, Jester slumped heavily to her knees, feeling dizzy and weak.

But in the next second, Beau and Fjord were there, battered and bruised and bleeding but alive. They both knelt before her, trying to speak. She couldn’t understand what they were saying right then, so Jester just shook her head and tried to make her tongue work long enough to say what needed to be said.

“We’ve only got a minute…he’ll only be gone for a minute…”

Something was pressed into her hands – a glass bottle. She stared at it before shaking her head and passing it back to whoever would take it. “I’ll be fine. You can’t heal vampire bites just like that.” She’d learned that much from trying to see to Caleb. The ones who had been bearing the brunt of Maxwell’s magic spells and magic sword needed the healing more.

Something in her eyes made them believe her. Jester lifted her head to see Beau downing the potion in a few swallows, and smiled in relief. She accepted Fjord’s offer of a hand up, and was about to try and outline the situation further when she saw Beau’s eyes go wide at the sight of something over Jester’s shoulder. “Look out!” the monk cried, shoving Jester aside as Nott surged forward with a knife.

A lot of things happened very quickly. Jester saw Nott’s knife sink deep into Beau’s gut, saw Fjord move forward to grab the little goblin and drag her back, saw Nott struggling to escape apparently for the sake of resuming her attempts to stab Beau to death.

“Maxwell got her under his control, too,” Beau growled, pressing a hand to her side. “Same way he did me.”

“M-My spell ran out a little bit ago,” Jester stammered, moving to check on Beau. “You are not still being mind controlled, are you? You still want to kill this guy, right?”

Beau grinned weakly. “More than anything, but we’re not gonna get far if he’s still got Nott fighting with him.”

“And I’m not gonna be able to hold her much longer!” Fjord called over, as Nott bit him in the arm and thrashed in his grip. “Little help?”

Beau straightened up with a wince and cracked her knuckles. “Pretty sure it was getting cut up all those times that did the job. One sec…”

Jester found that she couldn’t quite look as Beau delivered a few well placed punches to their friend. She knew she probably could have done more to help, but she was running low on magic and they were all hurting. She wanted to save her spells for that. _Sorry, Nott_ , she whispered in the privacy of her own head, but then she heard the goblin weakly ask what was going on, and let out a long breath of relief.

“Max is an evil motherfucker,” Beau said, as Jester started to cast the strongest prayer of healing she had left. “Jester vanished him but he’s gonna be back in like thirty seconds.”

“And we’re going to finish him off once he does,” said Fjord grimly. “You with us for that?”

Jester felt healing energy wash from her throughout the room, and only then did she open her eyes. The bleeding wounds crisscrossing Beau’s body were knitting themselves together, the acid scars on Fjord’s face were fading. Nott was hanging limply in Fjord’s grip, the bruises and singe marks on her face already healing, and Jester had a second where she wondered about that before she remembered that time was running short.

“Put me down,” said Nott at last, staring ahead at nothing very much. “I need to get out the good crossbow bolts.”

Fjord was happy to put her down, and Nott immediately went rummaging through the pouches on her belt. She pulled out two healing potions, passed one to Beau and one to Fjord, and then located her stash of enchanted crossbow bolts and loaded one up.

“If we can just get him to drop that damn sword, I think we’re in the clear,” Fjord said, after he’d downed the potion. “The spells he’s throwing around aren’t actually all that impressive. It’s the sword that’s hurting most.”

“I’ll handle that,” Beau answered without hesitation.

“Try and keep him in between the three of us,” Nott added. “We’ll catch him coming and going.”

“ _Four_ of us,” said Jester insistently.

Fjord shook his head and offered her a wan smile. “We need you to stay back. Keep your focus up on these little guys,” he said, nodding at the spirit guardians still flickering around the room. “Heal us when you can. We’ll take care of the rest.”

Beau smiled as well and offered Jester a thumbs up. “We just got you back. We’re not going to let him fuck that up. Promise.”

Between the potions and her healing, they looked almost as strong as they had when the fight began. They looked as strong as they were going to get, considering what magic she had left.

Jester was able to smile back and nod for them. She loved them all so much, and the sight of them all here with her made the hope she had briefly lost burn bright once more in her chest. “Okay,” she said, and then her guardian of faith stabbed out with its sword just as Maxwell reappeared in the spot where he’d vanished. The gleaming blade of light caught him in the chest as the guardian vanished, all its energy spent. Then Beau, Fjord, and Nott surged forward to continue the fight.

Beau wasted no time, grabbing Maxwell’s hand between both of hers’ and twisting and twisting and _twisting_ until Jester heard something break. She received several vicious gashes for her trouble, including one that nearly took her throat out, but in the end Maxwell was forced to drop his magic sword and Nott was there immediately to kick it into a corner of the room, and when Maxwell tried to retrieve it Fjord shot him in the back with a witch bolt for his troubles.

It was barely a fight, after that. That was what Jester would remember later. Maxwell still had magic at his disposal – no wizard was ever entirely without spells – but they were pathetic spells of the sort Caleb had been able to cast back when they’d first met. He was still fast, and he could hit hard enough to knock any of them dazed for a moment, but the other two were always on him before he could capitalize on any advantage.

And then there was Jester, waiting in the wings all the while to lash out with sacred flames or her lollipop or both for good measure. In the meantime, she kept up her connection to the spirit guardians that wove a brilliant net through the air and slowly carved the monster to pieces.

It was barely a fight after that, but there was still a moment where the tide nearly turned on them, a moment where Maxwell nearly reclaimed an advantage. He feinted for Nott and Beau fell for it, only for the vampire to suddenly whirl around and go for Fjord with almost blinding speed. He hit Fjord once, twice, hard enough that the half-orc swayed and then fell, truly unconscious. Maxwell was on top of him in an instant, pulling Fjord’s head back and baring his fangs.

Beau and Nott were moving in to stop him and before Jester knew it, she was, too. _“Get away from him!”_ she snarled in Infernal, axe at the ready, and when Beau and Nott’s strength alone proved insufficient to fully haul Maxwell off of their friend, Jester’s was enough. She collided with him hard enough to knock him aside and they all went down in a tangle of limbs and claws. There was a momentary struggle, Jester gritting her teeth as she felt huge gouges carved all along her arms and shoulders and chest, heard Nott and Beau cry out in pain as similar treatment was given to them.

The end result was what it had to be, however – Beau sitting on one of Maxwell’s arms, Nott sitting on the other, and Jester sitting on the vampire’s chest, swinging her axe down and around again and again and again against the monster’s neck as he screamed and screamed until he couldn't scream anymore and was just making wet gurgling sounds. She was panting raggedly with the force of her blows, but it felt as if the Traveler himself were holding her hands steady so that her blade struck true.

Until at last, Maxwell Virago’s head rolled free from his shoulders, before both head and body collapsed into mist below her.

“What the hell?!” Beau cried, scrambling up and watching the mist coalesce before it began to drift out of the room.

“What now?!” Nott demanded, swiping and stabbing at it the best she could.

“This is good,” Jester panted, getting to her feet and looking around for Fjord. It was the work of a moment to kneel down beside him and stabilize him with a simple cantrip. “This is good. Caleb told me this is what is supposed to happen. When a vampire gets really hurt, then turn into mist and hide. And if you find them when they are hiding, that’s when you can kill them!”

“Then we’d better follow him!” Beau pointed as the mist made it out into the hallway. “Let’s go!”

“I’ll be right there!” It didn’t look to be much of a chase, since the mist seemed genuinely unable to move very quickly. Beau and Nott stalked after it, out into the hall. Jester was left with plenty of time to shake Fjord awake and help him up, then offer him a shoulder to lean on when he still looked unsteady on his feet. Fjord smiled gratefully at her and took the offer without hesitation. Together they limped after their friends.

Nott was waiting for them three doors down the hallway. “In here!” she called, waving them over and pointing inside, where Jester could already hear the sounds of the room being enthusiastically tossed.

“Motherfucker went through the floor,” Beau said, glancing back over her shoulder as she heard Jester and Fjord come in. “There’s gotta be like a secret passage or a hidden room.”

 “Or he might have gone downstairs!” Nott added. “I’ll go and look!”

“Be careful!” Jester called, looking back as she hefted an end table. “Run right back here if you see him!”

“Will do!” Nott yelled back, and took off running for the stairs.

“Can you go after her?” Jester asked, glancing at Fjord. “Just in case?” The half-orc looked as though he would have enjoyed nothing more than to sit down, but he was also looking in the direction Nott had gone with undeniable concern on his face. So at her request, he nodded without hesitation, and limped after the goblin.

That left Jester and Beau to continue searching the room. It looked like it might have been a study before Beau knocked a couple of bookcases over and upended all the chairs. Jester got the distinct impression that her friend was enjoying this above and beyond simply needing to search, but also knew she couldn’t blame her.

“So you and Caleb were working together all this time?” Beau asked, as they searched the walls for some sign of a hidden switch.

“Yeah,” Jester said. “He was never mind controlled like you guys were. He was just pretending, so he could keep an eye on you.”

“That...” She heard Beau swear under her breath. “That explains a lot, actually.”

Jester didn’t want to think about what that might mean just yet. “But it meant he got to do a lot of research about vampires and how to kill them! And I tested them out on a weird sort of vampire outside in the town. We made a really great team. Except...”

Except now that the running and fighting was over, Jester found herself dwelling on details and _wrongness_ that she simply had not had time to consider before. Her back was to Beau right then, and that made it easier to take a deep breath and venture out into all the potential awfulness.

“Except Caleb and I were supposed to meet each other before all of this started. He, he said he was going to go and search Maxwell’s lab and then bring you guys out to me so we could try to find a way to heal you. But he never did, and...and I didn’t see him at all. Have you seen him, Beau?”

She heard the monk go still. Jester could practically hear the gears turning in Beau’s head.

“No,” said her friend at last, very quietly. “I haven’t seen him since this morning. He came out to see Fjord and me. Poor guy looked like _shit_. Wouldn’t tell us why, just...just something about a bath? Pretty much begged Fjord to come and sit with him in the library so he could get some sleep.”

Jester nodded slowly. “I saw him there. Caleb had to get Fjord out of the room so we could talk. And...and that was it?”

“Yeah. Fjord mentioned something about that. And...yeah, that was it.”

“Only, um, when I first saw Maxwell, he was all burnt up. Like, it was _awful_.”

She heard Beau shudder. “Yeah, we saw that, too. All burned up and with a big chunk of one of Molly’s swords jammed through his chest.”

That, at least, made Jester’s heart soar with relief. Maybe that was why Caleb had been so late. Maybe he’d found Molly and was just trying to protect him or help free him. Except…

“So you guys didn’t do that to him?”

“Us? Fuck no. First we heard of it was when Max asked us to pull the glass out of his chest.”

Jester could feel them both slowly creeping up on the same conclusion, but it was such an _awful_ idea that neither one of them wanted to be the first to say it aloud. So they searched the room in silence for a couple of moments more, until Beau went back to double check the space of floor she’d uncovered by tossing a rug aside.

“Come over here a sec,” Beau murmured, running her hands over the floorboards. Jester moved to join her just as Beau’s fingers found a deliberately placed knot in the wood. When she couldn’t quite get it to work, she motioned for Jester to try, and Jester was able to wriggle her fingers into the gap and rummage this way and that until she heard a “click”. The section of floor they were sitting on lifted a little bit beneath them and, between the two of them, they were able to heave aside the hidden trap door to reveal a small hollow in the floor, just deep and long enough to hold a coffin. Tossing the lid aside was child’s play, after that.

It felt rather anticlimactic, all things considered. Jester was too tired and numb to care overmuch. What was most important was that the coffin wasn’t full of a body – only mist.

“So how do we kill mist?” Beau asked, frowning down at it.

“I don’t think we do. I think we just wait until it turns into Maxwell again and then I stake him in the heart.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably good that we have some time, though, right? We can look for Caleb and Molly.”

“You really think Molly’s alive?” Beau sounded like the idea was too wonderful to even dare contemplate. Jester made a mental note to tell Molly about that later when they found him. And they _would_ find him.

“Caleb was _sure_ of it! And you guys saw one of Molly’s swords, right? What good is the sword without Molly?”

Beau mustered up a smile. “Not much.” But as they sat there together, she soon grew sober and thoughtful once more. As Jester risked a proper glance over at her friend, she saw that the other woman was in fact looking increasingly troubled. Her thoughts were almost audible as they came together in this hard-won silence.

“Hey, Jester?” Beau asked softly after a moment of the two of them staring at mist and sneaking glances at each other.

“Yeah?” Jester asked, feeling looming dread as an almost tangible weight on her shoulders. Whatever conclusions Beau was drawing were obviously terrible, and Jester didn’t know how much more she could take after all that had happened today.

“Nott...Nott was burned, too. You saw that, right? Her face, her hair, her clothes.”

Jester swallowed painfully, now unable to lift her gaze from the swirling mist below them. “...yeah. I saw that.” She hadn’t had time to wonder, but she’d seen it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to wonder now, but Beau was still talking, creeping up on her words like a woman creeping out over thin ice, and words failed Jester even as she wished her friend would stop.

“She wasn’t hurt like that before, when Maxwell took control of her.”

Jester so rarely knew what it was to feel truly _cold_ , but she felt it then, as a chill creeping down her spine and an icy grip around her heart. “What are you saying?” She _knew_ what Beau was saying, of course, or at least she knew all the words individually. Individually they made _sense_ but they seemed to be building up to something so awful it transcended words and reason.

For better or worse, Beau didn’t finish her thought aloud. She just swore vehemently, suddenly scrambled to her feet, and hurried out of the room, calling for Nott. All Jester could do was struggle to stand and chase after her, as fast as her weary body could go. She knew calling for Beau to wait would be pointless, so she saved her breath. It was still all she could do to keep the other woman in sight and follow the sound of her footsteps, as the monk’s path led down to the second floor, over a scorched stretch of hallway, and down to the entrance hall.


	18. Those Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mighty Nein are reunited, all save one. Later, Jester has a talk with her god and gets some hope for going forward.

Jester heard the tumult long before she made it down to the entrance hall. Someone was screaming, howling and wailing and _sobbing_ with a grief beyond measure. She stumbled to a stop at the top of the stairs, horror leaving her momentarily frozen, sympathetic tears already gathering in her eyes, heart _aching_ at the sound. It took her a second to even recognize the voice of the one suffering so terribly, and only then could she force herself to keep moving for the sake of seeing to her friend.

 “Nott!” she cried, racing downstairs fast enough that she almost tripped, stumbling to a stop between Beau and Fjord and taking in the scene.

Nott was slumped in front of them, wailing in agony, seemingly blind and deaf to everything else but what lay in front of her. _“He’s dead!”_ she was sobbing. _“He’s dead he’s dead I killed him! I killed my boy I killed my Caleb no no please…!”_

But it wasn’t Caleb in front of Nott, it was Molly. Molly was free and here and he was sitting in the middle of a puddle of red and clutching a mannequin like it was the only thing in the world. Jester drew nearer, her mind proving strangely, stubbornly slow to take in details. It was like she was sleepwalking and this was all a dream. The doll had reddish hair and blood on its face and staring, empty blue eyes…

Jester felt her knees hit the floor but still she sat and stared, as the sound of Nott’s misery seemed to fade into fuzzy echoes around her. This was not a person that Molly was hugging to his chest. People moved. Even when they slept they mumbled and shifted and you could watch their chest rise and fall with breathing but the figure in Molly’s arms was perfectly still. This was not a person, this was just…

 _“Empty,”_ Molly was whispering frantically in Infernal as he stared at nothing and fretfully petted the corpse’s hair. _“Empty, empty, empty...”_

“Caleb?” Jester whispered.

She was close enough that Nott heard her. The little goblin looked up at her wildly and seemed to seize on some mad, desperate hope. “Jester!” she cried, getting to her feet and then trying to drag Jester back up. “Of course! You can fix him, r-right? Right. You can fix him, you can bring him back, come _on_...”

Jester shook her head and pulled her hand away, curling in on herself, blinking back tears. “I can’t,” she whimpered, unable to tear her eyes from the corpse. “I...”

She had a spell that could do what Nott was asking, but only at the moment of death, only in the breath just before a soul had left the body. It seemed clear from the scene before her that that moment had long since passed. Maybe she should try anyway, what was wrong with her, why couldn’t she make her body _move_. Somehow, the thought of touching the body and casting the spell and feeling _nothing_ terrified her just that much, leaving her limbs leaden and frozen.

She’d survived this long all on her own, she’d just almost killed a vampire, why couldn’t she move…

Nott was talking to her, sounding more and more agitated, and then Nott was shouting at her and shaking Jester by the shoulders until suddenly Fjord was there, pulling the goblin away. “Nott!” Jester heard him yelling. “Nott, come on, it’s...” She managed to lift her head, then, and saw the exact moment when Fjord’s composure shattered. “It’s too late,” he said, voice breaking, sounding as though he only just believed it there and then. Then he knelt down and hugged Nott to him. For a second she struggled and strained to escape, hissing like a cat, before suddenly her efforts turned into her clinging back to him and burying her face in his chest and weeping anew. Beau moved over to join them, kneeling down and murmuring something to Nott, obviously trying to offer some words of consolation to the inconsolable girl even as she started to cry, too.

The sight of them all gave her a strange sort of strength, at least enough for Jester to try to move a little nearer to Molly. She didn’t quite stand to do so but that meant she accidentally put her hand down in the pool of blood for balance. The viscerally disgusted sound she made was enough to get Molly to look up and see her there.

His reaction was immediate and vehement. Molly shifted away from her and hugged the corpse protectively and snarled at her like a wounded dog. Jester sat back as if she’d been shoved, staring at him in disbelief. “M-Molly?”

Her friend hunched in on himself, as if anticipating a blow or preparing to leap, glaring at her, at all of them. He hissed and muttered and growled unintelligibly, until she realized he was actively struggling to speak, to find his words.

When they finally came, they came in Infernal, and each one sounded like a hook being messily pulled from his body.

_“Where were you?!”_

The question hit her like a knife to the heart. Jester gasped with the pain of it, felt fresh tears gathering in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “Molly...” she whispered, reaching out to him.

Molly flinched away from her, clutching Caleb tighter to him. “ _Where were you?!”_ he snarled again, at her, at all of them. His eyes were pits of red, raw, bloody rage. Even if the others didn’t understand the words, she could see the pain of Molly’s condemnations cutting through them all the same. Nott was rocking back and forth and whimpering, Beau was sobbing openly now, Fjord seemed to handle it best and even he had to lean against the wall. _“I was going insane in a hole in the ground, I was chained like a dog! He died alone and_ where were you _?! He...”_ Molly’s voice broke. He buried his face in Caleb’s shoulder and sobbed. At least this time, when Jester reached out to rest a hand on his back, he didn’t flinch away again.

 _“...he was holding his cat,”_ her friend whispered, and the _tragedy_ of those words cut her to the quick. _“He died holding his cat...I found him like this and, and that stupid cat looked at me and disappeared like he’d been waiting...”_

It was too much. The image of Caleb bleeding to death and holding Frumpkin as he died was too much. _He was scared_ , Jester realized, with a chill in her heart. It felt like the world was falling away in pieces around her. _He was scared to die but only Frumpkin was there for him. I told him I would make sure he was safe and he died all alone and he must have been so mad at me and I’ll never, ever get to say sorry…_

She felt Fjord’s arms wrap around her, warm and sure and strong, and he held her as she wept and so did he. She heard Beau punch the wall hard enough to crack it before she strode over to the two of them, dropped down next to them, and hugged them both. Eventually, even Nott crept into their shared grip. Eventually, even Molly let himself be pulled in close to all of them, though he never relinquished his grip on the body.

The Mighty Nein were free and reunited at last, all save one, all save one who had fought so hard to bring them to this point. For just a few moments there on the floor of the castle, they clung to each other and sobbed and mourned without reservation or shame.

Jester ran out of tears first. Later on she would wonder what that said about her. But in the end, she looked up from her own hands and felt her gaze dragged back to the top of the stairs. There, she saw just the barest edge of a green cloak disappearing around a corner.

She knew what it meant. She would always know when her god wanted her attention, when he needed to remind her that there was still work to be done. She was just grateful, in this moment, that he’d picked such a subdued way to go about it.

_He probably loved Caleb, too._

Not without some reluctance, Jester disentangled herself from her friends, stood up, and scrubbed at her eyes. “I will be back in a little while,” she said. Her voice sounded distant and strange to her ears, but it also sounded steady. That was probably most important.

“Where are you going?” Beau was up in a bound, grabbing her hand.

“Maxwell is not dead yet, remember? I need to finish killing him before he turns back into a monster again.”

“Then we should go with you!” Beau said heatedly, tightening her grip. Jester still pulled away easily and didn’t look back.

“He is only mist right now,” she said levelly. “And when he stops being mist, all I need to do is put a stake in his heart.”

“How do you know any of that?!”

“Caleb told me. Remember?”

Beau didn’t answer that. Jester found the strength to look back, then, and smile at them all.

“Besides!” she said, her voice bright and brittle. “You all should find Molly something to eat. And maybe see if there is anything valuable here. I want to burn this place down and dance in its ashes and it would suck to accidentally burn down some gold with it.”

“And maybe find a blanket,” Nott whispered. It was the first thing she’d said in a long while, and so all eyes turned to her. She sat, still rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped tight around herself as though to physically hold her sorrow inside. Her gaze was fixed on the corpse. “For Caleb. We...we shouldn’t leave him like this.”

“No. We shouldn’t.” Fjord reached down to gently clasp Nott’s shoulder. “We’ll find something, Nott. You’re right, he deserves that.”

Jester left them to work and plan and support their friends, loving them so much for all of it that she felt like her heart might burst. She smiled sadly at the sight of them all, helping one another up and talking in quiet, fond voices to each other, then she turned and walked away alone to meet her god.

*  *  *

Racing back up the stairs and to the ruined study felt like she was running through a dream, but Jester hurried as fast as she could all the same, stumbling to a stop beside the gap in the floor and peering into it to find that there was still only mist waiting for her. She heaved a sigh of relief and sat down gracelessly beside the edge. Good. She still had time.

Time enough to talk, at least.

“ _Can_ you do something for him?” she asked quietly, scarcely daring to hope. “Could I? Am...am I strong enough for that?”

She looked down at her hands where she was fidgeting with them in her lap. When she looked up again, the Traveler was sitting on the other side of Maxwell’s coffin.

 _Oh, my Jester_. His voice was soft and warm and sadder than she had ever heard it. _Yes, you are strong enough. But you would still need to learn the steps to perform and the words to say, and I am afraid this is one trick I cannot teach you._

She clenched her fists so tight that her knuckles went pale. “Why _not_?” The sound of her own voice scared her. Jester could not remember ever, _ever_ raising her voice to him before. But he had always had a way to make things _right_ before, that had been the one constant in her life, and now it seemed even that surety was lost to her.

_Because there are rules even gods must obey. Tiresome, I know. Once upon a time the secret got out into the world and we could not take it back. Mortals have passed it from one to the other, and we must answer the prayer when they make it, but we cannot spread the knowledge further ourselves._

_If I told you the secret, my voice would be torn from me and my form scattered to the eight winds. Then I could never see you again and I know you loved him, Jester, but that is just not a sacrifice I’m willing to make._

Jester was suddenly uncertain if that was a sacrifice _she_ was willing to make, and hated herself for it.

 _Breathe_ , he ordered gently, and she did, despite the tightness in her throat. _Think_. She tried.

“You cannot teach me, but...someone else could? Another cleric?”

_Yes. There’s usually one at the better class of public temple who knows what he’s doing._

Now Jester was breathing too fast, her mind racing with the possibilities, dancing with a hope she scarcely dared to look too closely at. There was a way. _There was a way_.

“Zadash? Do you think there could be someone like that in Zadash?”

_As sure as I ever am of anything. I do try to keep an eye on my fellows._

“What would I need?”

 _I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, either. Gold, probably. Gold can get you far in this world. Even so…_ She heard him smiling in the depths of that shadowed hood. _A quarter of the moon’s turning is generally as long as you have to call a soul back to this world before it forgets...too much. But I can teach you to steal a little more time from Death itself. Would you like to learn that, Jester?_

“More than anything,” she said, smiling gratefully at him, realizing that she hadn’t quite been out of tears after all.

It was a ridiculously easy spell, all things considered. He told her the components she would need and why, he told her the words to say, and he told her that the end result would be that they would have an extra ten days to find a cleric to bring Caleb back, as well as making him a little easier to transport in the meantime. Jester seized on the chance and laughed with relief. A goal. A plan. A way. _There was a way_. Nott would be so happy. Molly might even smile.

“Thank you, Traveler,” she whispered, bowing her head to him. “I...I know all of this probably wasn’t very much fun for you to watch, but...I’m really glad you stayed with me anyway.”

He reached out to rest his fingers against her chin, gently guiding her to look at him. This she did without hesitation.

 _Jester_ , he said, with some solemnity. _It’s been a very long time since I’ve been this proud of you._

His touch brought warmth back to her heart and feeling back to her body as he fussily brushed a tear from her cheek. _Not every journey is a joyous one, Jester. Not every fight can end with a joke or a smile. Misery and loss allow us to appreciate joy and wonder when they return to us. I am still sorry for you that your victory came at this price._

Jester sniffled and then resolutely tried to stop crying. "Thank you,” she said again. “That was a really smart thing you just said. When I bring Caleb back, I am going to tell him all about it.”

 _He seemed the sort who could stand to learn something_. The Traveler chuckled, then stood and inclined his head towards the coffin. Jester looked down to see that the mist had grown more defined as they’d been speaking, and denser as well. There was a defineably humanoid form to it now.

_I should leave you to finish your work._

“Yeah,” Jester said, still staring fixedly into the mist. She thought she could even see Maxwell’s eyes, now, but not enough to know if he was scared or not. That was a shame. “This is going to get messy.”

_I would expect nothing less._

Then he was gone.

Jester got up, went to a table she’d thrown aside, and broke off a leg. Then she went back to sit beside the coffin and wait. She sat patiently, idly tossing the stake from hand to hand, as Maxwell Virago took physical form once more.

She contented herself with the knowledge that it wouldn’t be for long.

She contented herself still further with the realization that he was awake, that he knew she was there, and that he was indeed utterly, utterly terrified.

“Good morning, Maxwell!” Jester chirped in a sing-song voice, beaming down at him, before she drove the stake into his heart.

He didn’t actually die after that, which was…annoying. But she had one more idea she could try.

It was easy enough to tie a couple of ropes around the paralyzed vampire and set to work dragging him towards the outside world. Jester considered just tipping him out a window, but she wanted to be _absolutely sure_ that this was going to work and that meant not taking her eyes off of him for a second. Besides, everybody else deserved the chance to see this if it worked.

At least the stake seemed to have left him in no fit state to move or talk or beg or blubber for his life. That was good. She had a headache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently staking through the heart doesn't kill vampires in 5E - it just paralyzes and incapacitates them. 
> 
> That said - look. I'm gonna be straight with you. You've come this far with me on this emotionally exhausting journey, you've earned that. Maxwell Virago is going to die a humiliating, permanent death next chapter. I hope you all find it satisfying. 
> 
> Also, the long and the short of Jester's current situation is that she's Level 8 and does not currently know Raise Dead, but the Traveler can tell that she's *absolutely* got a level up coming soon and so won't have any trouble learning the spell when she finds someone to teach her.


	19. After the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester delivers some good news and checks in on Molly. Later, the remainders of the Mighty Nein hold an impromptu celebration, and all of Tanner's Crossing is invited.

As Jester made her slow and ungainly way back downstairs, her prisoner bumping and thudding and knocking into things as she went, she passed by her friends, all scattered around and seeing to the tasks she’d left them. Beau looked up from shoving a couple of fancy vases into a sack she’d found and started following after Jester. Beau called Fjord over from where the half-orc was taking inventory of some food he’d found, and Fjord followed after them. Molly and Nott were sitting against the wall by the front door, staring at nothing. A familiar shape lay between them, heavily shrouded in a few fancy tapestries and rugs that Nott had no doubt picked out. They looked up at the sound of Jester’s approach, looked at one another, then they got up to join her, though not without sparing a brief backward glance at the corpse.

“I know,” Jester said, smiling reassuringly at them both. “It’s too bad Caleb won’t get to see him die. But we’ll tell him all about it when he comes back!”

Molly gasped softly. Nott’s eyes went wide. “But…but I thought…”

“I know what I said,” Jester said, waving a hand dismissively. “I said it wrong. I was super tired and not thinking straight. _Obviously_. What I _meant_ was, _I_ can’t bring him back, but there’s other clerics who can! We just have to take him to Zadash.”

Fjord laid a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him expectantly. “Jester…” He still sounded hesitant, like he didn’t want to believe, and her heart broke for him. “Are you sure about that? I mean, I’ve heard stories of magic like that, but I always thought they were just that – stories.” His gaze searched her face intently, and normally that would make her blush, but for now Jester simply smiled back at him, willing him to see the truth in her. “I, I want him back too, but…”

Beau came to her rescue, which was fortunate, since even the slightest mention of doubt from Fjord had left Nott looking like she was about to unravel again. “It exists,” she said. “I’ve studied some pretty reliable accounts of it. But that’s…that kind of thing is for _heroes_. The kind of people who save kings and kill dragons.” She shook her head, chewing on her lip, staring at her feet. “Not people like _us_.”

“Caleb is a hero!” Nott yelled, clenching her fists and glowering up at Beau. “And I’ll gut any cleric who thinks they’re too good to dirty their hands on my boy!”

She scowled at Beau and Beau looked at her. They both had tears in their eyes. They both looked very much like they wanted to hit something in that moment.

Beau gave ground first, but she did so with a chuckle. “You know what?” she said, scrubbing at her eyes and smiling weakly at Nott. “So will I.”

Nott actually swayed a little on the spot for a moment. Surprise was plain on her face. Then the little goblin laughed, though it wasn’t much of one at first – she sounded like she was choking on it. But then Beau laughed and so did Nott and even if neither one sounded entirely _okay_ , laughter always had to be better than tears in Jester’s very definite opinion.

Nott went over and slung an arm around Beau’s waist. Beau wrapped an arm around Nott’s shoulders. Molly shook his head at the sight they made, grinning faintly. Fjord's attention, meanwhile, was finally caught by what Jester was dragging behind her. “So, uh, Jester…whatcha got there?”

“Garbage,” she said flatly. “But it turns out that if you stake a real vampire in the chest, they don’t die right away. They just freeze up. So I was going to try and just leave him in the sun and see what that did. Caleb…Caleb said that sunlight is supposed to hurt them, only I don’t know how much, because all this time I’ve been fighting vampires at night or inside.”

“It would explain the heavy curtains and bricks,” Beau noted, gesturing at the blocked up windows right there in the hall.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jester said, nodding. “But I wanted to give you guys the chance to watch if this really does kill him.”

“Well, thank you, Jester.” Fjord smiled gratefully at her. “I think we could all get behind that. In fact…” And then his smile took on a decidedly wicked note and Jester thought to herself that he had never looked so handsome as in that moment. “What do you say to wrapping him up in his own blanket and dragging him down the hill? I’ve got a feeling everyone in town deserves to see whatever happens when we let him bake in the sun a while.”

Even before Jester could agree, Beau had already darted off. “I’ll find one!” she called back.

Nott scurried off in another direction. “Better safe than sorry!”

Fjord settled in to keep working on the inventory while they were gone. Jester was going to go and help him, but then noticed Molly sit down beside the paralyzed vampire, staring fixedly down at Maxwell’s motionless face. Jester found herself worrying about that – she wanted Molly to forget this monster’s face, not memorize it – and so went to see to him instead.

“Hey, Molly,” she cooed, sidling up next to him.  He flinched at the sound of her voice, and for a moment she was afraid he might start yelling at her again. But when he looked up at her he just looked so lost and upset and tired that she felt guilty for being afraid at all. So she just forced a smile for him and offered him a hand up. “Beau was putting all the valuable stuff in bags, and there’s a couple of pretty big ones, but they are _super_ heavy, so I was wondering if you would pretty please help me take them out to the cart?”

She thought she saw him smile, brief as lightning, before he accepted her offered hand. Jester knew that there wasn’t much point in pretending that he was stronger than her at the best of times, but he seemed to appreciate that she’d tried. And as he walked away with her, it was like another spell had broken, and a noticeable amount of tension seemed to bleed from his shoulders.

The sacks of valuables were heavy, but Jester was able to manage one and Molly just about managed the other. Together, they made their way outside.

They barely got three steps before Jester heard Molly’s bag thump noisily to the ground. She glanced back worriedly to see that Molly had dropped it and was staring up at the sky like it was the most miraculous thing he had ever seen. He shaded his eyes and stared up into the blue, at the sun and the clouds, and Jester felt her throat go tight when she saw that the sight apparently overwhelmed him so much that there were tears in his eyes.

“Where was he keeping you?” she asked quietly.

He swallowed visibly. She could see him struggling to speak, and in the end all he could manage was: _“Hidden.”_ He gestured vaguely back over his shoulder, back into the house. It was enough for Jester to make a few guesses, however, and be reasonably sure they were correct.

However he’d been hidden, Molly hadn’t seen the sun or the sky in days.

Jester let go of her bag and went to stand beside him. After a moment, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders and felt him slump against her a little bit.  He couldn’t quite lean his head against hers’, because their horns got in the way, but even having their horns pressed together felt soothing to Jester and she hoped it felt the same to him.

It must have, because it was enough to galvanize Molly into trying to speak once more. _“He found me. He saved me. He died.”_ She felt a shudder run through him, heard him choke on a sob that he wasn’t quite ready to surrender to again. _“It’s not fair.”_

 _“I know,”_ Jester said, squeezing her eyes shut against the renewed threat of tears. _“But we’re gonna fix it, Molly. I promise. It’s going to be okay. You…you don’t have to say anything else. Or believe me. But it is, and I will prove it to you, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”_

She stepped away then, and stepped around to face him for the sake of looking him in the eyes. He blinked in surprise for a moment, staring down at her, but then her words seemed to sink in fully and he smiled at her with such open and plain gratitude that it made her heart ache. Jester beamed back at him. He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead soundly, and she pressed their brows together just to let the closeness linger a little longer.

 _“I love you,”_ she whispered to him.

He didn’t have the words left to reply, but he didn’t have to. She saw in his eyes that the sentiment was returned and all was forgiven. Together, they gathered up the spoils of war once more and went to finish loading them on the cart. Then they went back inside, though Molly lingered a moment longer to feel the sun on his face.

Beau and Nott had returned by then, each dragging a blanket or a tapestry along with them. Nott was also peering down at Maxwell’s face, though her expression was at least a little less worryingly intent than Molly’s had been. “Jester?” the little goblin asked, as Jester and Molly came back inside. “Can I borrow some of your ink?”

“Why?”

“I want to draw on his face.”

Jester seriously considered it for a few seconds, but finally shook her head. “My _mom_ gave me those inks. I don’t wanna waste them on _him_.”

Nott looked a little disappointed, but grudgingly conceded the point without any further fight.

There was some minor discussion after that over who would actually stoop to the task of wrapping their prisoner up. It would require touching him, after all. A quick game of boulder-parchment-sheers left Beau and Molly with the job, though Jester made sure to keep an eye out and make sure they wrapped Maxwell up snug and tight. They didn’t want to hurt him until everyone was there to see it, after all. She took charge of retying the ropes herself, then went to sling both trailing ends over her shoulders. Molly surprised her by stepping forward to take charge of one. He and Jester exchanged a look, and Molly nodded resolutely, so she did not question further.

“Are we ready?” she asked instead, glancing at the others.

“As we’ll ever be,” Fjord nodded. “We can finish up everything else later. Best not waste any time on this.”

“Dessert before supper,” Nott added, staring fixedly at Maxwell once more with an overbright gleam in her eyes. “We’ve earned this.”

Jester couldn’t argue with that. She punched the air instead. “Then let’s go!”

Together, they all resumed the long and satisfying task of dragging Maxwell closer to his death, out the door and down the hill, past the scattered corpses of zombies and towards the town huddled down below.

“You know, it’s kind of a shame that he can’t at least talk,” Jester mused after a few minutes of walking. “So he can, like, beg for his life and stuff.” Her headache had cleared somewhat and she found herself warming to the idea. “I kind of think we’ve earned that, you know?”

“We totally have, but also fuck that,” said Beau, glancing back and spitting on the bundled up vampire. “This guy loves to hear himself talk too much already. I’m sick of listening to him! If this is what it takes to finally shut him up, fine by me.”

Molly nodded his emphatic agreement, but patted Jester sympathetically on the shoulder when her tail drooped with disappointment. “I guess you’re right," she conceded.

“I could pretend to be Maxwell begging for his life?” Nott offered.

Jester reached down to tousle the goblin’s hair through her hood. “That is very nice of you, Nott, but it wouldn’t be the same.”

Nott nodded in reply, even managing a brief smile, then looked around at the others. “Do you think he can hear us?” she asked.

“If it’s anything like the times I’ve been locked up like that, probably,” said Fjord.

Jester brightened a little at the idea. That was almost as good, then, and Beau had a point. After spending far too much time talking over everyone around him in every sense, Maxwell Virago deserved to die in silence.

It was only mid-afternoon – Jester reflected dizzily how quickly everything had happened – and so there were people still going about their business, still out and about. There were people to see the motley bunch descending the hill, dragging something behind them. A few hurried away, but a few stopped and stared, some even gathering in groups to mutter to one another. Once Jester was close enough to call out, she took a chance and did so. “Hey!” she yelled, waving as emphatically as she could. “Hello! It’s me!” She knew that people coming into town from up the hill rarely meant good things for the people of Tanner’s Crossing, especially when Beau and Fjord’s presence had already meant bad things. But she’d lived in town for a few days, she’d hosted a public breakfast in the tavern almost every day besides, surely a few of them would know her.

A few of them did. A couple of vaguely familiar faces waved back. Jester offered them a big thumbs up, and they were able to finish dragging Maxwell into town undisturbed.

“Maybe a couple of you can string him up somewhere, and the rest of us will go and knock on doors,” she said, glancing around town. “Make a big party out of this.”

“Molly and I can do the hanging,” Beau offered, and Molly nodded his immediate agreement. Of course, he probably wouldn’t be much help at rousing the town without any words left to him. But he looked around and pointed out a sturdy-looking elm tree growing next to a shuttered-up building that looked as though it might once have been a blacksmith’s. Beau nodded her agreement and they set to work dragging Maxwell towards it.

“That leaves you, me, and Nott to do the knocking,” said Fjord, offering her a thumbs up that Jester was happy to return.

And so they went their separate ways, hopefully for the last time for a long while. Fjord and Nott hurried down the streets and side streets, knocking on doors and walls and stopping people as they passes. Jester heard them talking fervently as she raced towards the Happy Weaver Inn.

“Norma!” she cried, stumbling to a stop in the doorway and glancing about the room. There weren’t too many people here just yet, not at this time of day, but the woman herself was behind the counter as she always was, and she looked up in surprise.

“Jester? My gods, where’ve you been all day?”

For a moment, it hurt _so much_ to keep smiling. But Jester forced herself to do so, for just a little longer. This was a time of celebration for these people, and…it should have been a time of celebrating for her, too, and maybe mourning the dead didn’t have to take away from that.

She just really, _really_ wished Caleb could be here for whatever was about to happen, too. He had deserved that as much as any of them. But maybe they could all be happy on his behalf.

“I’ve been doing good things,” was what she said, after she was sure of her voice once more. “Really good things. My friends are here too, and…and we have Maxwell and we’re gonna string him up and leave him in the sun and see if he dies and I really, really want all of you to see it!” This last left her all in a rush, leaving Jester faintly breathless as she stared imploringly at Norma.

The older woman opened her mouth, closed it again, then shook her head. “Jester, what…”

“I am telling the truth!” She could see that Norma didn’t believe her, or at least was trying not to believe her. Jester held up the magic axe. “I swear by this really great axe you were really nice to give me that I used to chop off his head! It didn’t kill him because he is a vampire but I think this _will_! I just need you to go and tell people to come and meet us by the empty blacksmith’s place!”

Moving like a woman in a dream, Norma came around the bar to meet her as Jester walked up to her. She could feel the eyes of everybody in the tavern and even a few people outside on her as she held out the axe to the innkeeper.

“This is a really good axe, and it helped me a lot, but I don’t need it anymore because it’s _over_ and he’s going to die and you all deserve to see that.”

Norma looked from Jester to the offered gift and back again, and Jester felt her stomach lurch with too many emotions to name to realize that there were tears in the older woman’s eyes.

Slowly, gently, Norma closed Jester’s fingers around the axe's handle once more, and Jester lowered it to her side. “Keep it,” said Norma gruffly. “You…you got more use out of it than I ever did. Oh, _Jester_ …”

And Jester let out a startled squeak as she was suddenly swept into an embrace for all the bar to see. Norma was definitely crying, though they at least sounded like happy tears. Jester managed to recover her wits enough to pat her on the back a couple of times. The innkeeper recovered quickly enough, though, pulling away and wiping at her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, turned to face the rest of the room, and clapped her hands loudly.

“You heard the lady! Seems like we’ve got an impromptu celebration on our hands, and we’re long overdue. Let everybody know, let’s get this town awake!”

“Let’s go!” Jester cried, punching the air. She didn’t quite wait for them, however. She lingered just long enough to see that everybody really was getting up and starting to move before she left the inn at a run to go and flag down some others. But only a few more, because Jester thought that she’d probably done her part by letting Norma know. Norma would know how to get everybody else together. For now, she just found that the surge of emotion and energy she’d gotten when they’d first set out on this mission was starting to fail her a bit – that meeting had been a bit more emotional than she’d intended – and now all Jester wanted to do was go and sit with her friends.

There was already a respectably sized crowd forming in a half-circle around the tree, but Jester darted around and through them, having eyes only for Beau and Molly. She found them sitting at the base of the tree, comfortable as anything as though there weren’t dozens of eyes on them.

The wrapped, sausage-shaped bundle that was Maxwell had been tied to a particularly sturdy branch, and he swung gently in the late afternoon breeze. Beau and Molly occasionally glanced up to make sure he was still there, but otherwise, Beau was talking animatedly to Molly about something and he was even smiling faintly to hear her. 

“Hey!” she called as she got close. They looked up and motioned her over, Molly patting the ground next to him in silent invitation. She was happy to take it, sitting down beside him and leaning against him. He seemed happy to encourage this with an arm around her shoulder, even looping his tail around hers’ a little bit. Just like that, Jester felt better again.

“Everybody should be here really soon,” she said. “I made a lot of friends, so I know they’ll believe me and I know they’ll want to watch this!”

Sure enough, more and more people were starting to join the gathering throng. When Fjord and Nott finally returned, each of them was leading a group along with them, and they were shortly followed by a few straggling hopefuls who had poked their head outside to see what the fuss was about. Then they saw, and Jester giggled happily to see the gasps and the shock and then the _joy_ on their faces as they took in the sight of their former lord and master hanging like a smoked ham from a tree.

She waved Fjord and Nott over. “We saved you the best seats in the house!”

“Thanks,” Fjord said, as he took a seat next to Beau. The two of them gave each other a fistbump. “Nice of you.” Nott hurried over to squirm her way in between Jester and Molly. 

Jester thought to herself that they looked a little worn out, too. Maybe this had been a lot for them to jump into after…everything that had happened, maybe they were all still a little fragile, but Jester couldn’t look out at the slowly gathering crowd of Tanner’s Crossing, see the looks on their faces as they realized what was hanging from the tree, and not think this was a good thing they’d done.

Besides, if her friends were feeling fragile, that was what she was here for. Just like they were there for her.

Jester watched as the crowd around the tree swelled and grew and watched and waited. No one really said anything, but that was fine. Even she was finding that there wasn’t really much to say, here and now. The Mighty Nein just leaned against each other, exhausted and sad but satisfied, and waited for the town to finish gathering.

At least until Beau started laughing. Molly and Nott stared at her blankly, Fjord sighed in aggravation, but Beau laughed and laughed until she had to clutch her stomach.

“Jester,” she wheezed. “Oh my _god_.”

“What?!” Jester demanded.

“Do you _hear_ yourself?”

“Yes?”

“You were _humming_. Just now.”

“I…what? I…oh…” And then Jester knew why Beau was laughing, because suddenly she couldn’t stop herself from laughing, too. The other three stared at them like they’d grown an extra head, until Beau and Jester recovered their breath enough to belt out in harmony:

_“Oh, the Ruby of the Sea is the best lay ever!”_

Fjord and Nott and Molly kept right on staring at them for several long seconds, until even Jester started to wonder briefly if there was something wrong with her.

Fjord shook his head and tried to look stern even as his shoulders shook. “You two…” he said, the strain of controlling himself evident in his voice. “You two are the _worst_.” Then he gave up the fight and slumped against Beau, giggling just a touch hysterically. Nott cackled freely, rocking back against the tree and kicking her feet in the air. Molly was laughing hard enough to shake him and leave the jewelry on his horns jingling musically in the air.

It was Beau who first recovered herself, and it was Beau who first seemed to remember the fact that a couple of hundred eyes were on them at that point. Rather than shying away or seeming embarrassed, she sprang to her feet, cupped her hands around her mouth, and called out to the crowd. “Who’s up for some fireworks?”

A truly _raucous_ cheer was her reply. It seemed to embolden Nott as well, who leapt to her feet alongside Beau and cried out: “We have a vampire hanging from a tree! Who wants to watch him die? Like, _actually_ die?”

This time, Jester felt the noisy chorus of whoops and cheers in her bones. She saw some parents lifting children onto their shoulders to see better. She saw some of the more elderly citizens being shuffled considerately to the front of the crowd. She saw Norma, and the older woman waved when she saw Jester looking at her. All that was missing was someone selling snacks but, well, this had all happened on rather short notice.

Now all her friends were getting to their feet, and Jester scrambled to join them as, like the conductors of a carnival, they prepared to bring the show to a true and proper close.

“Starting today, you’re safe!” Fjord yelled, as Beau, Molly, and Nott huddled up to whisper something to one another. “Starting today, you’re free!”

The end result was Molly lifting Nott up onto his shoulders so she could reach, and Nott drawing a bloodstained dagger for the sake of cutting through the blankets protecting Maxwell Virago from the sun. They couldn’t just pull it off of him with the ropes in the way, but they had other options. As Nott carved through the fabric, leaving only tattered scraps that she pulled free to let flutter away, Jester felt her heart soar to see the vampire’s flesh starting to smoke. The air was filled with the unmistakable sound of sizzling.

“Before you die, there’s one thing you should know,” she heard Nott say coldly, as she started to cut Maxwell’s head free. “We aren’t the only ones killing you right now.”

 _“Caleb is, too,”_ Molly spat.

Then Nott tore off the blanket from around Maxwell’s head and it was like setting a match to kindling. Maxwell caught fire instantly and burned as bright as a star, and the cheers of the crowd around them felt like it was making the earth itself tremble.

Jester watched him burn and then she grinned, threw her arms around Fjord and Beau, and sang out as loud as she could: _“Many men have tried to win her heart! Many men have tried and failed! They dream of horns, of sharp white teeth, of her hot red skin and tail!”_

They laughed and sang out loud together, as Maxwell Virago burned and blackened and eventually began to crumble away to ashes. In the end, in his last moments, he even manages to shake off the paralysis enough to scream.

Jester knew that sound would keep her warm on many a cold night from now on. And if there were tears on her cheeks by the end, well, at least the firelight casting all their shadows into harsh relief probably meant that no one saw. She was sure the others felt the same.

Most of his ashes blew away on the breeze but a respectably sized pile gathered at the base of the elm tree. Jester was seized by a wild impulse at the sight and was in no fit state to deny herself.

So she jumped into the ashes like they were so many dead leaves and danced right there on the spot, kicking the remains hither and yon. Her friends immediately rushed to join her, and she danced together with Fjord and Beau and Nott and Molly, hand in hand and arm in arm, until nothing of the monster remained to be seen, as Tanner’s Crossing cheered loud enough to wake the gods in their heavens.

*  *  *

Most of the rest of the day was taken up with cleaning up.

The Mighty Nein finished unloading all the food from the cellar and piled it up outside, along with several thousand gold that Nott discovered in a couple of different hidden chests scattered throughout the house and, eventually, anything else that looked useful or resellable. Most of the town came up to help reclaim that which had been stolen from them and were grateful to receive it, even from the ones who had helped steal it in the first place.

Fjord oversaw the library being cleaned out. A lot of people wanted to just leave the books, and he was having none of that. “They’re _books_ ,” Jester heard him arguing with someone as she walked by with another sack of food over her shoulder. “Books aren’t going to bite you in the neck, for fuck’s sake. You don’t burn books! You just _don’t_.”

Jester hid a smile. They couldn’t take _all_ the interesting books for themselves, but at least they could try to make sure the rest found somewhere new to live. Caleb would have been happy with that.

She saw families rolling up expensive tapestries, she saw men chopping up fancy tables for firewood. She saw a grim, sad few examining the ruined corpses scattered around, perhaps looking for relatives stolen from their graves long ago.

But mostly, Jester walked the halls and went through the rooms with a detection spell veiling her eyes, looking around for any sign of magic that might indicate there was someone else alive and imprisoned in the house. Molly had been insistent about that to the point of begging her, and Jester hadn’t been about to deny him. She found no one, though, and that was probably for the best.

“We are keeping some of this money for ourselves, right?” she whispered to Beau when they passed each other outside the stables. “I mean, we are the ones that killed this guy, and we’re probably gonna have a _pretty big expense_ coming up soon.” Those few times before now where they’d had to seek healing at another cleric’s temple had always been ridiculously expensive, in Jester’s very definite opinion, but sometimes there just weren’t any better options.

“Nott put together a bag with, like, five hundred platinum in it,” Beau whispered back. “That should be enough, right?”

Jester did some hasty calculation in her head. “If it isn’t, I’m with you and Nott. I say we start stabbing some greedy motherfuckers until they give us a discount.”

Beau smiled her approval, nodded, and went back to loading up food into other peoples’ carts. Fortunately, no one put up any fuss about the Mighty Nein loading up some of that food into their cart for the long road ahead, so Jester had to assume that no one would begrudge them the money, either.

Jester hadn’t said anything about Caleb to anyone but her friends, and she suspected her friends hadn’t, either. It had hurt a little bit to realize that no one in town had even known Caleb was alive and so no one would appreciate what his death had cost them, how it weighed on their hearts.

But on the other hand, it really wasn’t anyone else’s business how the Mighty Nein looked after their own.

And as the bustle of activity wound down, as the mansion on the hill grew empty of anything except broken glass and bloodstains, there was one more thing Jester had to see to with that in mind. 

She and Nott sat together in the back of the cart with the corpse between them. Nott danced anxiously from foot to foot, making distressed noises, as Jester carefully unwrapped the blankets and rugs around Caleb’s head. “Be careful!” she squeaked. “Don’t…don’t jostle him!”

“I’m not gonna jostle him!” Jester insisted. “I’ve just gotta…”

 _Gotta cast this spell_ , she was going to say, but then she pulled the last blanket aside and there was Caleb’s face and suddenly it felt like all the air had been punched out of her lungs.

It was the first time she’d truly seen him like this. She hadn’t really seen his face before, not properly, what with Molly clinging to him so desperately. Someone had closed his eyes, which was good. Someone had even cleaned the blood off his face. He didn’t look like he was in pain. She didn’t know if that was better or worse. He really might have only been sleeping.

Except, when she touched his cheek, it was cold. His skin was already going pale. He _looked_ like he was only sleeping except Caleb had never, never been this still and quiet when he was asleep. She looked at him like this and there was an indefinable sense of _emptiness_ to him and it was somehow terrifying. This was not Caleb, this was just a body, so why did it have to _look_ so much like him?

Jester bit the inside of her cheek to try and keep from crying again. She was only partly successful.

“Just in time,” she whispered, reaching into her pouch of spell components and pulling out a pinch of salt. She sprinkled it over his face, then pulled out the two copper pieces she’d set aside and laid one gently over each eye. Then she clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and said the magic words she had been taught. After a few moments of prayer, she felt the spell drawn tight, and smiled in relief. Here was a shield that would protect her friend from the ravages of time for a little while. It wasn’t much, but it was something she could do while she learned to do more, and that alone was enough to leave Jester feeling stronger.

She took herself by surprise by bending her head and pressing a soft kiss to Caleb’s forehead. “Good night, Caleb,” she whispered. “We will see you soon.”

“Yeah,” Nott said, smiling down at him and not even trying not to cry anymore.

Together, they carefully wrapped him back up, making sure not to dislodge the coins, and went to tell the others that they were ready to leave.

In the end, they did not dance again through the ashes of the mansion, because the sun was getting low and they all agreed to get a few hours of travel on the road instead.

But the glow of its destruction was visible for miles, as good as a second sunset and twice as beautiful, and even let them get a little further that evening than they might otherwise have managed.


	20. Pilgrimage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a long way to Zadash, leaving the Mighty Nein with far too much time to reflect on what they've lost and how much it cost them all to get this far. 
> 
> Mollymauk in particular has a lot to think about, but he tries to be there for his friends whenever and however he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought checking in with Molly would involve one chapter. Then I checked the word count and Molly's "chapter" had grown to be 12k words long. So I'm posting the first half here and the second half will go up sometime tomorrow because I am not beta-ing 12k words in one shot. 
> 
> This whole section turned out to be kind of a disjointed, nonlinear mess, and that also gave me some trouble until I realized "wait, *Molly* is currently a disjointed, nonlinear mess." And then I decided to just roll with it.

It was a strange and solemn journey to Zadash, and longer than Molly would have liked. The days blurred together, so that he remembered moments and flashes and conversations but if you’d asked him later with a sword to his throat, he would not have been able to remember what happened on what day or which conversations in particular followed others.

He remembered that the journey was faster than it should have been, and that was good. They alternated how quickly they went, keeping up an average pace one day and a swifter pace the next, trying to balance the need to get where they were going with the need to not injure the horses. They risked pushing further and further into the dark of night, wasted less time than they might have in finding a place to camp. All told, their efforts shaved a couple of days off the journey, and so what should have been nine days on the road became seven.

And that was good, that was more than fine by Molly, but he wished they could have gone even faster because a week was still too long.

It still left him with far too much time to dwell and dream.

_The nightmares weren’t even the worst ones. Nightmares were expected and familiar. Dreams of death and dirt and isolation and pain were awful, but also not something he was a stranger to. The stage they were acted out on had changed, but the subject matter was so familiar._

_No, the worst dreams were the ones where everything was_ okay _._

_He had dreams of the moment he’d stumbled out of the basement and seen the body collapsed by the stairs. He had those dreams over and over again. But sometimes, when Molly went to gather Caleb up and try to wake him, when he did something indistinct that he knew was helpful in the way you always knew such things in dreams, Caleb actually woke. It turned out that he wasn’t as hurt as he looked after all, and he was actually okay, and the two of them hugged and laughed about their narrow escape and when everyone else came downstairs there was no grieving, no tears, just the Mighty Nein together again. Frumpkin would purr loud enough to wake the dead as he twined around their legs and Caleb would hold Molly’s hand as they watched the monster burn._

_Of course that was how it happened, of course people didn’t suffer and fight and lose as much as Caleb had only to die alone, that was silly..._

And then, inevitably, Molly had to wake up and usually he didn’t always remember right away why he had tears in his eyes and an ache in his chest. Sometimes it was the sound of Nott quietly sobbing to herself that reminded him. Sometimes he could live in the dream a little while longer until he actually got up and caught sight of the wrapped body in the cart.

Nott slept beside him a lot on the journey, curling up against his legs the way she always had with Caleb. Molly didn’t know why, but also didn’t have it in him to ask her. After all, it actually was sort of soothing to have her there, grounding and familiar. Maybe she was trying to carry on the goal Caleb had ultimately died for by protecting him however she could, or maybe she just still smelled some remnant of Caleb’s blood on his clothes and was chasing that familiarity.

He was grateful to her either way.

The two of them also shared the cart frequently on the trip to Zadash. Molly tried to ride a horse on the first day and fell off twice. He couldn’t get the hang of it and just wound up agitating the horse and slowing everyone down. His time imprisoned hadn’t left him with any physical marks, had barely left him with an empty stomach, but now that he was up and walking and free it was like his body was finally catching up to the reality of what had happened to him. His limbs felt stiff and his muscles felt weak.

Beau at least seemed to notice that much in a hurry. Their second night camping, she pulled him aside and tried to walk him through some exercises and stretches that she used to keep in shape. They were _heinously_ difficult and she definitely laughed at him a little bit as he tried to keep up, but somehow Molly found that he didn’t mind too much. He just wished he could have sniped back at her properly without needing an ink pen.

He was happy to have the pen at all, of course. Jester had insisted that Molly hold on to the sketchbook, which maybe should have worried him, but he was selfishly grateful to have something to hand that he could use to communicate with. His tongue was lead, his words were _gone_. He woke up the morning after they burned Maxwell and even Infernal was beyond him once more. The other probably heard him periodically trying to force himself, but they were nice enough to not say anything.

At least with the sketchbook, he could physically hold the words “ _what are you doing?”_ in front of Nott’s face as she sat hunched over her alchemy set in the cart with him. Nott let out a startled yelp as her vision was suddenly obscured by paper, splashing something onto the wooden slats, and scowled at Molly as he sat down on the other side of the alchemy set. At least whatever she was doing obviously wasn’t acidic, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still curious.

“I’m making something,” she said. “For Caleb.”

Scribble, scribble. _What are you making?_

“It’s...it’s complicated. I’m still trying to work it out.” Nott frowned thoughtfully, tilting her head to regard him. “Actually, you might be able to help me with this. You see, I’m, I’m trying to make something that will help muscles and bones and things get better. For...for Caleb.” He could absolutely tell she’d been about to say more before she’d checked herself, but was content to let that pass. “And you seem like you’ve been sort of stiff and sore lately, Mollymauk.”

Molly shrugged, then nodded. No point in denying it. Beau was helping him work the kinks out of himself, but it was frustratingly slow going. Jester had tried to help with her magic when she could, but this wasn’t a wound to heal, this was just...time and misuse taking their toll at last.

“So maybe I could test this on you! And if it works, you’ll feel better, and I’ll know Caleb will feel better, too.”

Molly frowned, and Nott immediately quailed, ears drooping. “I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to...” she added meekly, but Molly shook his head and held up a hand. That hadn’t been why he was frowning, but explaining that far would have taken more than he had in him, even with an ink pen. 

Instead, he wrote out _sure, why not_ , circled it for good measure, and passed the book over for her to read. Nott read the words, seemed to read them again, then beamed in delight and passed the book back to him before holding out her hand to shake. That reaction alone made any potential risk worth it, and Molly shook her hand to seal the deal.

Most of her concocted salves did nothing very much over the next few days except make his arm sticky. A couple gave him annoying rashes that Jester was thankfully able to cure. Eventually, however, Nott came up with some viciously smelly ointment that burned like ice when first applied only to somehow fade into a gentle, soothing heat, like a warm bath you’d had time to settle in. It helped Molly relax when the cart left him cramped and sore, it helped him stay on the horse when he tried riding again. It was the most miraculous thing Molly had ever come across and he could have kissed her for it.

As it was, he was more than content to let her rub the stuff into his elbows and knees and shoulders every evening while she “refined” the contents of it. It felt nice enough to leave him purring, sometimes. The sound made her laugh, and he didn’t mind. Laughter was always better than tears.

*  *  *

Of course, Nott’s spirits were not always so easily lifted, which he discovered one night as they sat together on watch.

“Mollymauk?” she asked quietly, as they sat by the fire and stared out into the darkness.

He managed a sound of acknowledgement.

“You…you know what I did, right? What I did to him? To…to Caleb?”

Molly kept staring out at nothing, even as he felt a desperately exhausted _sigh_ building in his chest. He bit it back, though, and reached for the sketchbook instead.

Of course he knew what Nott had done to Caleb. In those few desperate moments when he’d still thought Caleb could be saved, Molly had pulled a crossbow bolt out of his back. He hadn’t appreciated what that meant there and then, perhaps, but the pieces had been easy to put together later.

He didn’t write any of that, though. All he wrote was _yes_ , in big black letters to make it easier to read by the faint firelight. Nott read his reply, and he heard her gulp.

“Do you think the others know?” she asked, in a very small, very scared voice.

Molly shrugged and then, realizing that was insufficient, wrote _probably._ Even if they hadn’t noticed the bloody bolt on the ground, Nott’s clothes had been singed and there had been blood on her face and there hadn’t been any sign of anything else in the house that could have carved Caleb up with such merciless knife wounds.

 _Does it matter?_ he added.

“Of course it matters!” she hissed, sounding like it was a genuine effort for her to keep her voice down.  “Because if they know, if _you_ all know, and you’re just…letting me stay here, that is _insane_. You know that, right?”

Molly gave the question what consideration he could, but finally shook his head, even as he felt like a man creeping out over thin ice. _No. Why?_

He muffled a startled gasp when Nott grabbed his wrists and dragged him around to face her. The fear only abated slightly when he felt her fingers shaking, when he saw that her eyes had gone big and round and full of tears once more.

“I _killed_ him,” she whispered, her voice breaking, staring up into his eyes like she was desperately seeking…something. Something that he was not remotely sure he could give her. “I _did_ that. I’m the reason he’s just…just _there_ on the cart. He begged me to stop and I didn’t, he tried to make he listen and I _didn’t_ , just like…just like…”

 _Just like a goblin,_ Molly finished for her in the privacy of his own mind. She couldn’t say it, but she didn’t have to.

“And, and I’m the reason his hand got hurt! You didn’t know that, did you? His poor hand got broken so badly and that was my fault! I _told_ on him to that monster and he hurt Caleb so much…of course he wanted me to stay away after that and instead of being sorry _I killed him.”_ Nott stared down at her own hands like they were the most impossibly disgusting things she had ever seen.

He wanted desperately to hold her and let her sob these ridiculous ideas out of her head, but Molly knew he needed to take advantage of having his hands free to write instead. _That wasn’t really you. You didn’t really want that._

“If I hadn’t really wanted to, _I would have stopped_ ,” she hissed, glowering up at him even as she struggled not to break down entirely in sobs. “If I’d wanted to protect him as much as I thought…”

 _Magic seems like it doesn’t always work that way. I couldn’t get out just by wishing. Neither could you._ He held his reply right up to her face, but already had a feeling he was fighting was a losing battle. She didn’t want to believe him. On some level, he even  understood why. There was no one else around who she could blame for Caleb’s death, and so she blamed herself.

“And even if it was an _accident,_ even if you accidentally kill a good person, you’re still supposed to be punished! But no one is doing that and that’s just _wrong_ and I don’t understand!”

He wanted so much to hug her, but even as he reached out, it felt like the air around Nott had grown spikes. And Molly was forced to confront the idea that she did not want to be comforted. It felt like it he held her too tightly she’d break into a thousand brittle shards.

She wanted to be punished because right now the world felt too bitterly unfair to go on in, and he understood so much that it hurt. Maybe there was a compromise that would let her keep going a little while longer, though. That might be all he could offer, but that didn’t have to be nothing.

He held up a hand to her in a silent request for a moment’s thought. She gave it to him – he could tell that she was having to work hard enough on trying not to cry loud enough to wake the others. Molly tried his best to get his words in order, tapping the gifted pen against the page again and again. Finally, when it felt like the silence pressing in from all sides would drive them both mad all over again, he went for broke.

 _None of us have done anything because we know that isn’t our decision to make_.

He circled the message, and then he passed the sketchbook over to her so she could take as long as she needed to read it.

She had to take a few moments, her eyes moving back and forth and back and forth over the words and what scant reassurance they offered. But in the end, they worked. In the end, Nott smiled and passed the book back to him.

“Of course,” she said, and her voice was a little breathless as if she’d just set down some massive physical weight. “That makes sense!” She giggled a little. “Of course, you’re all waiting to see what Caleb wants to do to me. It’s his choice. He’s the one I murdered. I just have to make it until he’s back, and then…and then he can decide. Yes. But we can still be friends until then. If you want.”

He nodded that of course he did. Then she surprised him by reaching over to hug him, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing fiercely. “Thank you, Mollymauk,” she murmured, her voice muffled in his coat. “I don’t know why I didn’t see that before, but…I feel better. Thank you.”

He wrapped an arm around her thin shoulders and held her to him for a long and blessedly peaceful moment, feeling the breaths shuddering through her as she finally, finally seemed to calm.

They passed the rest of the night in silence, but for a few games of naughts and crosses on a fresh piece of paper. When their shift was over, Nott settled in to sleep easier than he’d seen her in days. He seized on the sound of her snoring to keep himself blessedly awake all night.

*  *  *

One morning, Fjord pulled Jester aside while everyone was getting ready to leave. Molly didn’t hear what they were saying, but he felt the stares on the back of his neck as he kicked dirt over the ashes of the fire. Whatever was said, it ended with Jester letting out a gasp and crying, “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I forgot!” He looked back to see her motioning for them all to join her. “Beau, Nott, Molly, come here!”

This they all did, gathering in a group around Jester, and at least Beau and Nott looked as curious as Molly felt. Jester cleared her throat and stood up a little straighter, folding her arms behind her back. “It has come to my attention,” she said. “That all of you still remember the weird fake memories that the vampire put in your head. But I can take them out if you just give me a minute!”

“Please do,” said Fjord, stepping forward. Jester stood before him, rested her fingertips lightly on either side of his face, and then they both closed their eyes as Jester’s hands started to faintly glow.

Molly scrawled _what’s this about?_ In the sketchbook and held it up to Beau and Nott. They read the question, and then immediately looked away.

“Doesn’t matter,” Beau mumbled.

“The vampire put some fake memories in our heads,” said Nott. “I mean, they were very obviously fake. But it would still be nice to have them out.”

_What sort of fake memories?_

He underlined it twice as if that would make them pay any more attention. It didn’t. “Doesn’t matter,” said the little goblin, staring at her feet. “They’re going to be gone in a minute, anyway.”

“Did he do anything like that to you?” Beau asked quietly, glancing over at Molly in that strangely intent way she sometimes had. “Make you remember things that obviously didn’t happen but you thought they did anyway?”

Molly shook his head emphatically even as his stomach went tight and cold with dread.  _Fake_ memories hadn’t been the problem for him. They never had. He must have been successful in keeping that from showing on his face, however, because Beau managed to force a smile. “Guess that’s something. Don’t worry about us, Molly. Jester’s gonna fix us up.”

He nodded, then hurriedly went to lean against a tree somewhere out of the way while he waited for the three of them to get sorted out.

Fjord, however, seemed to have other ideas. As Jester stepped away from him to go and see to Beau, the half-orc was left shaking his head like a man emerging from a dream, staring at something only he could see. Even when he seemed to recover himself a little, his first thought was apparently of Molly – or at least, he looked around until he saw the tiefling and then hastily made his way over. Molly caught himself tensing up, then tried to force himself to relax.

“Hey, ah...” said his friend, clearing his throat, rubbing a hand anxiously over the back of his neck. “Listen. I know I’ve maybe been...a little weird these past couple of days? I mean, I suppose we all have, I suppose none of us are really  _okay,_ so to speak. But I wanted to apologize, properly, for any of that I might have directed at you. It...it wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t anything you did. I know that.”

The _now_ seemed to hang unspoken between them, even if Molly still didn’t entirely understand why. Even if he’d had the words to ask, he couldn’t possibly have marshaled them before Fjord suddenly pulled him into a hug, and at that point all of Molly’s thoughts flew apart.

It was a brief embrace, but it still left Molly’s throat tight and his eyes stinging traitorously. Yet it also left him feeling like something was being squeezed out of his chest, something that had made it so hard to breathe for so long that he’d gotten used to it. He was able to return the hug before Fjord pulled away. The other man also looked a little emotional when he did, but he just smiled, clapped Molly on the back, and then hurried to go help finish breaking camp.

Whatever Fjord had remembered, Beau and Nott were similarly conciliatory whenever they remembered it, too. Neither of them hugged him, which was probably good, because an emotional breakdown was no way to start a morning. But Beau clasped his shoulder for a moment as she led her horse back to the road, and Nott squeezed his hand as she passed by to put all the camping supplies back in the cart.

It was a minor miracle that Molly managed to keep his curiosity in check until Jester came to find him herself. “Okay, Molly!” she chirped. “Your turn!”

He caught her wrist as she reached for his face and then, as gently as he could, guided it back down to her side. When she looked confused, he held up the words _I’m fine ._

“Oh!” she said. “So the vampire didn’t put any weird fake memories in your head? That’s good!”

_No fake memories here. What was that about?_

“Um...” She bit her lip, then darted an anxious glance at where the other three were already gathered around the cart, ready to go. “Sit with me while I drive today? I will tell you then.”

Molly nodded, though not without a twinge of reluctance, and they went to join the others.

Fjord and Beau rode a little bit ahead and off to the side to scout the road. Nott settled near the back of the cart with her alchemy set. Jester was driving today, and Molly found that he’d recovered his strength enough so he could just about sit balanced on the backboard to be close to her.

“Okay,” Jester said quietly, once she was apparently assured that the rattling of the cart wheels would keep them from being easily overheard. “So, um, I really only just learned a lot of this just now. Caleb didn’t tell me very much. But...you weren’t there for this, obviously, but when the vampire was mind controlling everybody, Caleb sent me away with magic before he could get to me. And I think he used the possibility fragment to save himself. Except he pretended he was being mind controlled, too.”

 _Didn’t work_ , Molly reflected bitterly. He hadn’t been able to pick up much from Caleb’s mind in the brief moments they'd been joined – just a lot of flashes and fragments – but he’d gathered that much. So much suffering, all for him. _All for nothing_.

“And so, um...I guess the vampire wanted to make sure that everybody would be fine just being his servants forever and wouldn’t worry about where you were or where I was. So, he used magic to make them think that you killed me on accident trying to get to him and Caleb killed you trying to stop you and...”

_Oh._

It all made sense, and Molly felt like an idiot. Worse, he felt like a _cruel_ idiot.

 _Where were you?_ He’d asked them that in his rage and his grief and his pain, snarled it in the sort of voice he only ever reserved for causing harm. It had been easier to spare Jester a little of that lashing out, but only because Caleb had seemed so fixated on her when they’d last spoken. He’d known Jester was doing _something_.

As for the other three...he hadn’t entirely blamed them but some tiny part of him _had_. Caleb had fought alone, Caleb had died _alone_ , they should have been there to help him when Molly couldn’t.

 _Where were you?_ He’d demanded that of them and now he knew. They’d been ignorant and helpless and just as in need of rescue as Molly had been and it had come too late to save Caleb. And that was still bitterly, brutally unfair, but it _wasn’t their fault_. Maybe he should have known that from the start but the reality had been hard to hold on to. Now that he knew the truth of the matter, it wasn’t quite as hard to fix that in his mind. When he did, Molly found that he could even breathe a little easier.

When he did, it suddenly felt like he really, truly had his friends back. These weren’t just people he shared a mission with, these were his _friends_ , and the whole and utter truth of that settled over his shoulders like his own favorite coat. They had all been victims, and they all had to help each other and maybe, just maybe, broken mess that he was, he still had that capability in him. It was like Beau and Fjord and Nott were pieces of a puzzle trying to fit themselves back together around him and now he could do the same.

Jester looked a little confused to see Molly smiling. When he noticed her staring to the point that she risked angling them off the road, Molly hastily wrote out an explanation. _No fake memories, but some things were bothering me. You fixed that. Thank you._ And he kissed her on the top of the head for good measure.

“Oh, good!” Jester said, looking relieved. “I’m glad. You are most welcome, Molly!”

Things seemed to flow a little better, after that. It was easier to flag down Beau and Fjord when he overheard them talking and had something to interject. Nott didn’t tense up whenever anyone sat down next to her. They made camp that night without tripping over each other, and Jester even managed to tell some jokes that got them all laughing. When they bedded down in whatever comfortable spots they could find scattered throughout the clearing, Molly still felt like some vast distance between them had been lessened, that he once again had friends he could reach out to. And that alone made him brave enough to try closing his eyes.

*  *  *

Another night, Molly woke up to the sound of Jester crying quietly. The sound had drawn him out of his dreaming before it had truly had time to solidify in his mind, but he woke with his chest hurting in that way it always did following one of the “nice” nightmares. So he wasn’t in the mood to go back to sleep, and he wasn’t about to leave her to her tears. Though Molly didn’t know what he could really do for her, he sat up – carefully, so as not to wake Nott – and looked around for his friend.

She wasn’t difficult to find. Jester was limned by firelight where she sat on watch, though she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin and her face buried in her hands. Moving quietly, so as to try and not wake the others, Molly crept closer and settled down beside her and only then did she seem to realize he was there at all. She looked up at him and flinched back with a startled gasp and he had to hastily pull her closer to try and keep her from falling into the fire.

“M-Molly,” she stammered. She swallowed and wiped at her eyes, sitting back once they were sure her skirt wasn’t about to get singed. “Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

Molly smiled wryly and waggled his hand back and forth, trying to convey without words that she had, but he wasn’t about to complain. She seemed to get the general gist of it. He saw her relax a little, before a thought seemed to occur to her.

“Can I see my sketchbook really quick?” she asked. And, since it was her sketchbook, he didn’t hesitate to go back to his bedroll and retrieve it from where he’d bundled it up in the makeshift pillow of his coat. He brought it back to her, along with the pen.

Jester hastily started flipping through pages, obviously seeking one in particular. Her eyes were so bright as to be almost glowing in the firelight. Then Molly felt a surge of alarm when Jester found the right page, and her response was to roughly tear it out of the book, ball it up, and toss it into the fire.

Instinct more than anything made him move. Molly caught the paper before it could be fully consumed by the flames, though his fingers received a nasty scorching for his troubles. He pulled back hastily, and even when pain made him drop the paper ball, he moved to block Jester before she could try and throw it back. It wasn’t like he cared what she’d drawn but this was so _unlike_ her that he found he couldn’t just let the attempt pass unchallenged. Even so, his stubbornness seemed to be genuinely upsetting her. “Let me burn it!” she snapped, glaring up at him, breathing hard. “I hate it! It’s the worst drawing I’ve ever done and I hate it and I want to burn it!”

For a wild moment, he thought she might be about to jump him for the sake of fulfilling her mad impulse to burn a drawing.

But she didn’t, and when he turned away a little to uncrumple the paper to try and see just what had started all of this, he could almost hear the fight go out of her.

Then Molly saw, and understood.

Even with his keen eyes, it could be hard to make out details with only a campfire to see by. But that light served him here well enough. The drawing was of a dashing blue knight and a grumpy princess with reddish hair trapped high in a tower that was guarded by a dragon with really big fangs…

“You see?” Jester whispered miserably, as Molly pressed a hand to his mouth. “It’s awful. I want to burn it so I never have to see it again!”

Molly shook his head, then shook it again, then folded the drawing and tucked it into his shirt and then turned around to face her once more so he could hug her close.

She didn’t resist that, at least. Jester slumped against him, wrapped her arms around him, then buried her face in his chest and let herself keep crying for a little while. He rubbed her back in big, slow circles, the way Yasha still did with him on his bad days, and at least managed to summon enough of his voice to murmur soothing nothings to her until she found hers’ again.

“I could have saved him,” she sobbed. “A lot of times. I said I could take him out of there whenever he wanted me to but he never did and I should have done it anyway! I saw how he was getting hurt and how scared he was but I just let him keep going back inside!”

 _He was scared for the others._ It wasn’t a hard conclusion to come to. The one that followed it, however, left Molly feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. _He was looking for me_.

He’d seen a lot of flashes in the brief moments where he and Caleb had been connected in their thoughts. He hadn’t seen a lot of details or context, but in a way, he hadn’t had to. He’d seen _enough,_ and remembering that now made him faintly nauseous.

What would have happened, if Jester had pulled Caleb out of the house early on? Could they have still found a way to rescue Fjord, Beau, and Nott? Would they ever have found Molly in his tomb? Or had this been the only way to go, and it always would have ended with Caleb’s death?

He didn’t know which option was worse.

“Are you still mad at me, Molly? Do...do you still hate me?”

Every nerve and thought _seized_ at the question with an almost physical pain. His grip on her tightened impulsively for a mad, desperate moment. Then he let her go, but only for the sake of resting his hands on either side of her face in a silent plea for her to look at him. This she did, though it clearly scared her to do so.

Mollymauk Tealeaf had never wished so desperately in his life to be able to say the word “no”. But he couldn’t, so he just shook his head, and then he shook it again even as his vision blurred with tears because how had he _ever_ had it in him to make her think such an awful thing? How had he not appreciated before just how much Jester was hurting if she was at the point of thinking anyone could possibly hate her? It still wasn’t enough to tell her “no”, he should have told her “never”, but his tongue was lead and his words were gone and so when she smiled so tremulously at him with tears still shining in her eyes, all he could do was hold her once more, let her cling to him, as they both cried themselves empty.

When he was sure he could write in the sketchbook again without smudging the ink, Molly scrawled an order. _I’m going to wake Fjord. You need to be done with watch._

She bit her lip, darting an anxious glance at the sleeping forms of their friends. “But…”

Molly shook his head adamantly, tapped the message again for emphasis, then got to his feet and went to rouse the half-orc. Fjord struggled to wake, grumbling a bit as he sat up. “That time already…?”

Something about the way Molly looked, or perhaps even just the tense way he was crouched, kept Fjord from questioning any further. “That time already,” he said, nodding and getting to his feet. Molly watched as he went over to exchange a few quiet words with Jester, then wrote a hasty query and went to try and intercept Jester before she returned to her bedroll.

The words he held up in front of her were _Want to join Nott and I?_

She read the words, then she looked at him, and he was right on the verge of feeling unspeakably foolish when she smiled and laughed, soft and bright as silver bells.

He helped her move her bedroll next to his, where Nott was still curled up and snoring. She mumbled softly in her sleep, reaching out to wrap herself around Molly’s legs once more when she sensed him settling in beside her. He petted her hair until she relaxed fully once more, then shrugged out of his coat and tossed it over Jester just as she was laying down.

The other tiefling let out a soft “eep” as the fabric suddenly covered her, and struggled to get it off of her head to blink in puzzlement at Molly. He could see protest building on her lips even as she moved, perhaps subconsciously, to draw the coat more comfortably around herself. He’d already set the sketchbook down and was suddenly too tired to try and pick it back up again, so Molly just shook his head again and pointed at the coat and pointed at her and then pointed at the moon overhead until she hopefully got the message.

She seemed to, in the end – or at least, the grateful smile she offered him was half again as warm as the coat had ever been. “Thank you, Molly,” Jester whispered, as she settled down onto her bedroll.

He laid himself down properly beside her and, when he noticed her hand resting a little in the space between them, Molly reached out to cover it with his. She squeezed his fingers in turn, then closed her eyes, and then at least one of them got to sleep peacefully through the night.


	21. Somnolance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly’s refusal to sleep starts catching up with him. It doesn’t help that what dreams he does have reveal some unfortunate truths. The Mighty Nein try to be there for him, however they can. Later, the team arrives at Zadash, picks a god to appeal to, and gets ready to do the impossible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also known as "the chapter that made me realize 'Wow, I broke Molly a little more than I thought I did.'"
> 
> Hope you guys like dream sequences!

Of course, none of them were sleeping well. That was an open secret from the first night.

Eventually, Nott started passing around her bottomless flask for everyone to take a few swigs from before bed if they wanted. Even Jester gave that a try. In the end, it didn’t do much to help any of them, perhaps not even Nott herself. Fjord was vomiting seawater nearly every morning. Beau tended to wake up looking more tired than she had when she’d slept.  

“Maybe that’s just as well,” Molly overheard Fjord saying to Jester at one point. “Think we all got used to Caleb stringing up that alarm spell every night. Even Nott never bothered learning it. Now...well, at least if none of us can sleep, none of us can get sneaked up on.”

Even Molly knew that wasn’t how it worked, but he wasn’t about to turn down a positive spin on their current situation. Besides, later on he overheard Nott adamantly refusing to try to learn the alarm spell when Fjord asked her about it. “Caleb will be back soon,” she said flatly. “Then _he_ can teach me. If he wants to.”

Besides, retrieving the silver thread from Caleb’s coat would have required unwrapping him, and no one wanted to do that.

On the third night when it became clear that the booze was helping no one, Beau pulled Molly aside after everyone had set up camp that night. She pressed a small vial into his hand, and held up an identical one for inspection. Whatever was inside glittered a beguiling shade of green, and Molly felt his mouth watering a little at the anticipation of _some_ kind of relief. “Look,” she said. “I was saving this for, like, a special occasion or something? But you look like shit, and I probably look like shit, and this stuff’s supposed to be the fun kind of weird. Maybe it’ll help. This whole mess isn’t the good kind of special, but…well, it sure is something.” She offered him a weak smile, which he was happy to return, and showed him how to work the stuff into his gums.

The end result was the two of them laying side by side in the dirt, pointing out new and interesting stars to each other, occasionally laughing at what the stars had to say, and marveling at colors they couldn’t even have begun to name as they drifted through the air in brilliant auroras.

“You know,” Beau mumbled at one point. She’d shifted during their talk so that now her head was resting on his shoulder “I’m kinda smart. I could learn a language. You think you'd maybe wanna teach me Infernal when you’re back on your feet?”

Even in the midst of his pleasantly colorful haze, Molly was surprised that she would ask. Yet he found himself touched at the consideration – maybe this was just the drugs talking, and she would forget in the morning or else laugh in his face, but there and then it meant a great deal. So he tapped her shoulder to get her to look at him, and then he nodded his agreement.

His dreams were strange that night, but they didn’t wake him up screaming in the dark and they didn’t leave him waking in the morning with tears in his eyes. He was pretty sure flying had been involved at some point. His joints hurt all over again, and so did Beau’s, but he fancied the dark circles under her eyes had eased a little bit. And she didn’t laugh in his face – that was even better.

Jester told him later how cute they’d looked cuddled up together. Molly absolutely refused to be embarrassed.

*  *  *

Other nights were not quite so easy. Molly knew all too well now that sometimes a reprieve only made the torture worse when it inevitably started up again.

_“Are you quite sure about this, Lucien?”_

_“Which bit in particular?” He looked up from his desk, to where Cree was hovering anxiously in his doorway._

_She stood up a little straighter as his gaze fell on her, visibly steeling herself. Poor, brave fool – it was a special trial, having a lieutenant who coupled being so desperately shy with also having some of the best ideas. “I don’t trust this_ leech _.”_

_He smiled wearily at her, then motioned for her to come in. “Oh, nor do I. But he’s proving himself a useful leech, and I’ll let him keep right on being useful if that’s what he wants.”_

_Cree closed the door behind her and sat down on his bed, though her posture remained straight as a ramrod. “And in exchange...”_

_He sighed, long and tired. “In exchange, he wants me to devise for him a ritual to let him make multiple vampire spawn at a time without biting them. Odd, that. He’s already a walking corpse, you’d think he wouldn’t be so squeamish about getting his hands dirty.”_

_“We cannot let that knowledge get out into the world! The power it would grant them, the suffering they could inflict on others...”_

_“I know,” he said gently. “I know. That’s why we’re not going to give him anything of the kind.”_

_She blinked, her eyes big and round with surprise. “But...” And she gestured at the pile of papers on his desk._

_He smiled at her and held up a finger. “We need that key. And so we need to give him something that looks impressive and convincing long enough for him to hand over the key._ That _is what I’m working on here. I’ll just tell him that I needed it encrypted to make sure it traveled safely. By the time he realizes otherwise, we should be well away.”_

_“That still leaves you in his house trying to deceive him with nonsense.”_

_“Oh, it’s not quite nonsense.” He felt like a child again, bursting with the need to share a secret. So he did, going to join her on the bed and leaning close, murmuring the truth to her that even the other Tomb Takers could never know, for their own sake. “It’s absolutely a blood ritual. But anyone involved who sees it through to completion will meet quite a decisive end.”_

_She gasped, then looked at him with that gaze of respect and awe that always left him feeling like he could do anything for her, for them. Even though something also seemed to trouble her faintly, and he loved her for that, too. “Even...”_

_“Even the victims,” he said, gently and firmly and somberly as that pronouncement deserved. “Better dead than something like that...and if they’ve fallen into the power of someone like Maxwell Virago, they’re past any other sort of help.”_

_She nodded, though she didn’t look as though she liked it. Neither did he, so that was fine. “Agreed.”_

_“So if the gods are kind, he won’t even have time to realize he needs to hunt us down until he’s blown his own head off. And if he decides to get smart during the handoff, well…” He fluttered his fingers, mimicking the wind. “Out through the walls we go. That’s why I’m only bringing you and Dobson. I know you can keep up.”_

_“And we will.”_

_“Good.” He kissed her forehead, then scratched affectionately behind one of her ears. She batted his hand away even though he could tell she was trying not to smile. “Cheer up. This takes us one step closer to the end.”_

_“You forget that I know what is waiting for us all at that end.”_

_“It’ll be fine. It’ll work. And if it doesn’t...you know what to do.” When she still looked hesitant, he gently tilted her chin so that their gazes met once more. “I mean it, Cree. I’m counting on you for this. For a lot of things, but especially this. It’s going to be a hard few weeks, and...and of course I don’t want to leave you all. But whether there’s a group to come back to is all going to depend on you.”_

_“I know,” she said somberly. “And I will not fail you, Lucien.”_

_He smiled, not even bothering to hide how the words set him at ease when the past couple of weeks had conspired to do anything but. “That’s my girl.” He folded her into a hug that she was happy to return, and for a moment all was safe and still._

_But, duty still awaited. “I should get back to work,” he said, pulling away a touch reluctantly and standing to return to his desk. “Thank you for checking in, Cree.”_

_“Of course.” She got up and made to leave, but the sound he made distracted her. “Lucien?”_

_He’d caught sight of himself in his mirror. “What on earth is wrong with my face?”_

_He kept his gaze fixed on the sight of his own reflection, so he didn’t see her expression, but he heard the uncertainty in her voice. “I...I don’t know. I did not wish to ask, I thought it might be part of your work.”_

_“No...” He drew a little closer to the mirror. These gaudy trinkets hanging from his horns, these marks all along one side of his face and down his neck. Not his blood hunter marks, there were too many other colors. More importantly, they were_ useless _, how had they gotten here at all?_

_He tore one of the silver chains free and tossed it contemptuously into a corner, before checking the hole it had left behind to feel it already healing. Good. But the ink on his face might take more drastic measures._

_Lucien grabbed his dagger off the desk and drove the point of it into his cheek and watched as the red bubbled forth until that ridiculous peacock was obscured from sight but doing so seemed to upset Cree, suddenly she was shouting and trying to grab hold of him._

When he woke, a lot of people were shouting and grabbing hold of him, trying to hold him down, trying to pin his hands. He snarled and snapped at them – his face hurt, why did his face hurt, what were they doing to him…

“Molly!” someone was shouting. “Molly, Molly, wake up, please!”

Who was that, who was this, who was he…

He almost got a hand free but then two more hands were suddenly there to hold it fast. They were all so much stronger than him. He was starting to tire, and as the rush of adrenaline was replaced by exhaustion, the words they were shouting washed over him like the tide.

“Molly, come on, it’s all right, it wasn’t real...”

“Mollymauk! Your name is Mollymauk!”

“Fuck, why can’t you be this strong when we’re actually supposed to be fighting something...”

 _Mollymauk Tealeaf._ The name came to him like the sun from behind a cloud. _Molly to my friends._

He went limp beneath them, and was happy to do so. The weariness seemed to catch up with him all at once, leaving him trembling. The other three held him fast for a moment longer until they were apparently sure he’d given up the fight, then slowly eased up the pressure. The campfire was little more than embers, so between them and the starlight above he could barely make out the expressions on their faces, but their silhouettes were blessedly familiar and they were radiating concern so palpably he could almost taste it.

 _What happened?_ He tried to ask the words aloud, looking from friend to friend, but all that emerged was a hoarse croak. Beau reached out to him and he had just a moment to wonder what she was doing before he felt a damp cloth being pressed to his face, being scrubbed gently along his cheek. Strange, his face already felt wet, and why did it hurt so much…

“You back with us, Molly?” Fjord asked. Molly managed a nod when Beau pulled the rag away. “Jester’s going to try and heal your face now. Is that okay?”

He nodded again, a touch uncertainly. The jewelry on Jester’s horns gleamed faintly in the dim light as she moved to sit beside him. Beau helped Molly sit up, the better to let Jester reach out and rest a hand gently on one side of his face. Molly stared at her uncomprehendingly – he could barely see her face but what he could see looked so _sad…_

“You were trying to claw your face off,” said Nott flatly, as Jester’s hand started to glow and Molly felt blessed relief coursing through his injuries. “Why were you doing that?”

“Forget that, I want to know why you were laughing,” Beau added. “It was pretty fucked up, considering, y'know, you were trying to claw your face off.”

That all sounded horrifying and impossible and _not like him_ , but Beau had just scrubbed some blood off his face and Jester was healing the claw marks he’d gouged there and hopefully there wouldn’t be a scar, please dearest Moonweaver please don’t let him have ruined his favorite tattoo.

And now that the rush had faded, now that everything and everyone had gone a little quieter, Molly was realizing that he could remember the dream-memory-nightmare with terrifying clarity.

But where did he even begin with that? There wasn’t enough ink in his borrowed pen and there weren’t enough words in the _world_. Even above and beyond the existential horror, how could he have done anything _but_ laugh at the memory he’d recalled? Sometimes even tears weren’t enough, sometimes laughing was the only thing you could do.

 _It was never going to work. That stupid ritual was never going to work. So many people_ died _for him to try and work out what he was missing and it was always by that bastard’s design and you four might have just wound up more bodies on the pile, all for nothing, all my fault._

Two things brought Molly back to reality. The first was the decidedly strange but familiar feeling of a fine chain being slipped through one of the holes in his horns that absolutely hadn’t been empty when he went to sleep. “You tossed this a pretty long way,” Nott said, patting him on the head before fixing the trinket back into its proper place. “Luckily there’s no one better than me at finding hidden shiny things.” 

Jester, perhaps seeing that he was starting to look a little more awake, kissed his newly healed cheek very gently. There wasn’t even the faintest twinge of pain when she did. “Are you feeling any better, Molly?”

_No no no I am not feeling better I will never be better I will never be okay again if I close my eyes I might see through his don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me…_

He took a very deep breath, let it out, and managed to force a smile for her. He managed to nod without throwing up, and was proud of himself for it. Then he thought to himself that he should probably apologize for waking everyone up, and fumbled around for the sketchbook. “Here,” Fjord said, pressing it into his hands along with the pen.

Molly opened it up and flipped to a page that looked blank. _Sorry I woke you all_ , he wrote. This wasn't the first time he'd made a nuisance of himself from a nightmare, but up until now he'd only needed whoever was on watch to wake him up, not everyone left of the Mighty Nein. 

Jester made an upset sort of sound and wrapped her arms around Molly from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Don’t be sorry! _I’m_ really sorry that you got scared so bad. Can I do anything to help, Molly? I could sing you a nice lullaby. I know lots.”

That sounded…

...that sounded _really good_ , actually. He was far too tired to care about pride right then.

 _Please_ , he wrote, and underline it. She kissed his other cheek, and he felt a little more tension bleed from him, a little more of the fear retreat to the dark and empty places of his mind where it belonged.

It perhaps should have felt strange to settle down again with his head in Jester’s lap, but it didn’t. It felt far too nice to feel strange, especially when she started to stroke his hair. Like this, he could just close his eyes and breathe in the faint but perpetual smells of sugar and cinnamon that were all but baked into her clothes at this point. Like this, he could just let the sound of her voice drift through his mind and clear everything else out.

Nott surprised him by laying herself down on Molly's back, reaching out to run her claws ever so lightly along his arms. After the surprise faded he found himself sighing in relief and feeling grateful to her all over again. Like this, she was a slight but noticeable weight, pressing him into the ground, pressing him into his body. The faint, ticklish back-and-forth patterns she traced along his arms left a pleasant trail of goosebumps, while also leaving him sure that she was ready to act if he tried hurting himself again. All told, it was good and soothing and  _safe_ , and he wondered how many times she'd had to do something like this for Caleb.

Beau was not the sort of person to cuddle when she wasn't high, but Molly felt her sit down by his legs, close enough that he could feel her there, close enough to know in his bones that she was watching over him, too. 

Fjord sat down on Molly's other side, and Molly was already too drowsy to feel anything more than dull curiosity when he saw the distinctive flash of the falchion being summoned to hand. But Fjord didn't do anything with it, just sat and let the perpetual soft glow around it banish back the shadows a little bit, let Molly watch the way the light danced in soft, smooth waves along the blade. The light was tinged with blue, and when Molly closed his eyes, it painted strange, beautiful patterns on the inside of his eyelids. Like this, it was easy not to think of dirt and graves. Like this, he could think about the ocean he'd never seen instead.  

Jester sang softly to him, simple little lullabies of bear cubs in the woods and mice dancing in circles but to Mollymauk Tealeaf, they were the most beautiful songs in all the world.

For the first and only time on that strange, sad pilgrimage to Zadash, he was able to close his eyes and sleep without dreaming.

*  *  *

Another night, Molly woke from a dream to the sound of Fjord and Beau talking in low, heated voices.

“...see how anything’s going back to normal after this,” Beau was saying, and Molly loved her desperately in that moment for saying what he’d been unable to all this time. “I don’t see how we just go back to being a team like nothing happened.”

“Why’s that?”

“How is he _ever_ going to trust us again? We just...we stood by and we let him get hurt. _Abused_.” She said the word like it was trying to stick in her throat, like it was something vile to be vomited up.  

Silence. Just the sound of the fire and Molly’s own breathing, too loud in his ears.

“We didn’t know,” said Fjord at last.

“We _should_ have known! I cannot stress how obvious it was that that monster was hurting him!”

“It’s obvious _now_. We were all enchanted, back then. Controlled. More subtly than I think any of us expected, but that’s how magic works sometimes.” More silence. He heard the faint scraping sound of a knife over wood – one of them was whittling something to pass the time.

“I know you don’t want to admit it, Beau, but that’s what happened. You pretending that you could have changed anything doesn’t necessarily make it true.”

“You think that’ll make a difference to him?” she asked, bitterness thick and plain in her voice. “I mean, there…there are some things that you can’t just _apologize_ for. Right? So what if he just takes Nott and vanishes in the middle of the night? I’m not saying I want him to, I’m just saying, I don’t think we’re really giving that possibility enough consideration.”

Silence. This time it lasted long enough that Molly had to focus his gaze on a couple of fireflies dancing lazily through a nearby patch of grass so he didn’t risk succumbing to sleep again.

“I think,” said Fjord at last, with some solemnity. “That it’s up to him to decide what happens next. It’s up to him to decide if he forgives us – we can’t take that choice away from him either, Beau. Not even if we think we’re doing him a favor for it.”

“Guess not,” she mumbled.

“But for what it’s worth…I think if he wanted to write us off, he had plenty of chances to. Even after things got bad. Jester was waiting on the outside all that time, remember? She would have gotten him out if he’d asked. He might even have been able to talk Nott into coming with him. But he stayed, for Molly and…and for us. So even if he blamed us, it wasn’t enough that he didn’t still want to save us, and that’s not nothing, Beau. I have to believe that.”

“He _died_. It’s not like he planned for _that_ , right?”

Fjord hummed thoughtfully. “Caleb’s a smart man. I think he must have known it was a possibility, even if…fuck, I hope he didn’t guess right about _how_ it’d end. But if he still decided to go forward in spite of that, well, we should give that choice the respect it deserves. He took a heavy burden on himself, Beau. He shouldn’t have had to, but he did, and he did that for us. To pay him back, now we can help him with whatever comes next. He used his strength for us, now we can use ours’ for him. If he wants us to.”

“If he wants us to,” Beau echoed glumly.

“I’m feeling good about this, though.” Molly felt his heart skip a beat to realize that Fjord actually sounded like he believed that. “I think the time for him and Nott to disappear was last winter. The fact that they’ve stuck around this long has to count for something. I think they’re in this for the long haul. And that’s fine by me, because I am, too.”

“Me, too.” It sounded like Beau had remembered how to smile again. Molly heard her take in a deep, shaky breath. “Guess we’ll get the chance to ask him ourselves pretty soon, right?”

“Yep. Only a couple more days to go.”

They fell back into an easier stream of chatter after that, quiet and light and soothingly monotonous.

That was fine, because Molly suddenly found himself with more than enough to think about in order to stave off sleep a little while longer.

*  *  *

_“Molly? Molly, it’s time to wake up!”_

_Grumbling, Molly opened his eyes, and the sight that greeted him was simply the canvas of his own tent and sunlight pouring in from outside. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, to see that Toya was poking his head in._

_“You’re going to miss breakfast,” she said anxiously. “Bo made your favorite this morning!”_

_“Thank you, dear,” he said, before having to stifle a yawn so big that it made his face hurt. “What would I do without you?”_

_“Did you have more bad dreams?” Toya asked, as he got out of the tent and stood beside her in the star-studded twilight._

_“Strange ones,” Molly said. “I’ll tell you all about them after I’ve eaten.” He looked around at the campsite, at all the various members of the carnival scattered around the field of ashes and practicing for their upcoming show. Desmond and Orna were working together to dig through the ashes, calling for Mona and Yuli to stop being ridiculous. Molly hoped they were careful to not fall in. Hell sure had an interesting idea of an antechamber._

_“Okay!” Toya offered him that familiar shy, bright smile, and went to go help Klyre finish sewing his head back on. Molly, in turn, went to see Bo, who was presiding over a stewpot bubbling away atop a fire._

_“Molly!” said the big half-orc happily at the sight of him. “We were afraid you were going to sleep the day away. Here.” He pressed a big bowl of something red and steaming into Molly’s hands. “Saved you some.”_

_“Thanks,” Molly said, smiling back, before shoving a forkful in his mouth. It tasted so good that he heard himself say, “I’m really glad I’m here.”_

_“We’re glad you’re here, too, Molly. Where else would you be?”_

_He found that he didn’t have an answer to that. So instead, Molly looked around for a place to sit, and found one beside Jester. She had already finished her breakfast and was hard at work knitting a blanket out of green yarn that tangled all around her like snakes and spiraled out around her until the ends were lost in shadows._

_“Good morning, Molly!” she said brightly. “I am glad you got some breakfast.”_

_“Me too. And you know, I had the strangest dream last night.” The yarn politely wriggled itself out of the way to make a space for him to sit._

_“Oh?”_

_“I dreamed that you and me and Fjord and Beau and Nott were off by ourselves. Just traveling around, getting into trouble. Yasha, too, sometimes.”_

_“Wow! That is weird.” She giggled at the very idea. “Why would we do something silly like that? That would mean leaving the carnival!”_

_“I know! Honestly, must have been something I ate last night.”_

_“Oh, that reminds me! Yasha came back last night. Can you go and bring her some breakfast? I would, but I am a little tied up right now.” A stray clump of yarn nuzzled itself against her face like an affectionate puppy. Jester laughed and batted it away to resume her work._

_“No sooner said than done.” And, since he already had the bowl in hand, Molly went to go and find Yasha._

_He found her standing beneath the old, burned tree at the top of the hill. There was only one body hanging from the branches, now. He could have seen its face if he looked up, but Molly didn’t want to. Yasha’s face was much nicer to look at._

_He all but pounced on her when he got close enough, laughing, the bowl obligingly vanishing so as not to spill. She chuckled faintly and pulled him into a proper hug, and for a moment the world went close and safe and_ sensible _again._

_“I miss you,” Molly said, breathing in the familiar smells of her – flowers, blood, steel, cheap beer_ _._

_“I miss you, too,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to come back this time.”_

_“That’s fine. That’s...that’s not fine. Are you okay?”_

_He pulled away to look at her properly. She smiled wryly, holding up an arm that still had a manacle affixed to it and a broken length of chain dangling from it. “I manage.”_

_“Yeah, you do.” He reached up to wipe the blood off her face with the edge of his sleeve, but doing that just made more blood drip from her hair, so he stopped. “As long as you come back. You always come back. That...that matters. It really does. I’d offer us to come help you for once, but...” He gestured at the hanging body, even if he absolutely did not look at it. “We don’t have the greatest track record with saving people right now.”_

_“You’re doing okay,” Yasha said, and only when he heard the words in her voice did he even begin to believe it. “Just take care of yourself, Molly. I’m worried about you.” She tilted his head up so she could kiss his forehead, and Molly heard the rustling of feathers as her beautiful, skeletal wings wrapped around them both, shielding him from the drifts of ashes being blown about by the breeze._

_Down below, he could see his friends dancing beneath the stars. Maybe he would go and join them in a little while, but Yasha was just too nice to rest against right now, and it felt as though he hadn’t slept in years. Too many strange dreams keeping him awake._

*  *  *

This was what it came down to.

All of his friends were clinging to a single hope, fixating on a single guiding star. Everything would be better when Caleb was back. Everyone would be fine when Caleb was back.

Absolutely none of them seemed to be aware of the fact that Caleb might not be coming back, despite the fact that he, Mollymauk Tealeaf, was living proof of that possibility.

It drove him a little bit madder every day, like a screw being wound slowly tighter at the base of his skull. Some days he was glad he didn’t have any words, because he might have _screamed_ if he did, he might have shaken them and screamed  _look at me!_ How could they look at him and not see the living antithesis of all their hopes?

This body, _his_ body, had once belonged to an asshole named Lucien. Then Lucien had died, though he’d died with a plan in place to come back, and a team of devoted followers and friends who’d presumably done everything they could to put that plan into action. But it had all come to nothing, and it had been Molly who’d opened his eyes in that shallow grave, Molly who could look at Cree now and feel _nothing_ for her. Maybe what the Tomb Takers had done for Lucien had been different from what they were going to do for Caleb, but really, how many ways could there be to bring someone back from the dead? From what scattered fragments he’d been able to piece together from Jester, this wasn’t something even gods liked mortals to get involved with.

So Molly could not escape the idea that the same might happen here – that whoever opened Caleb’s eyes might not be Caleb, that it would be a stranger who would look at them and feel nothing, and he couldn’t stand the thought of what that would do to his friends to have their one fixed hope dashed like that.

He wasn’t looking forward to going through that personally, either. Much as he rationally knew the likely truth, being surrounded by optimism all day meant that he occasionally caught some himself. It also meant that even if he’d had his voice, he would have _tried_ to keep quiet, tried to keep himself from disabusing them of their hopes. He knew he could be cruel and stupid but Molly liked to think that was a depth that was still beyond them. After all, at least for now, this hope was getting them through the days on the road. That wasn’t nothing, and he truly did not wish to take that away from them, even if it meant that there were some feelings he had to struggle through alone.

Even when he wasn’t dreaming, sometimes Molly would find himself remembering the last time he’d seen Caleb alive – the way the other man had seemed to rise up and burn off his own agony when Molly had been right about to break for good. How Caleb had stood between him and Maxwell, obviously terrified and obviously not about to be stopped. He remembered the way Caleb had smiled, vindictive and fierce, whenever he’d managed to make the monster scream in pain.

He remembered Caleb shielding Molly when it seemed like the very fires of hell were raining down on them, and the way Caleb had kissed him like he was making a promise before he’d run to rejoin the fight, bleeding and exhausted but resolute.

A man could fall in love so easily with someone so determined and strong, someone who had been there to protect him when all hope had seemed lost and Molly almost hadn’t seen the point of not losing himself. Especially if that someone had already been pretty special to begin with. 

So Molly _had_ fallen in love, all too easily, though it had taken him days to put the right name to the tangled, writhing mess of emotions that filled his head and heart after the dust settled, that surged up within him whenever he thought of the wizard.

 _Of course you’re the type of man to fall in love with someone after they’re dead_. He could have laughed at himself for it and never stopped if he hadn’t been afraid the others would ask why. _Of course you are, you useless disaster._ Desmond had always used to tease him once for having such a hopelessly romantic soul. Molly thought now that that might have been a far too kind way of putting it.  

And now he couldn’t see any way where he could ever let Caleb know. These might very well be feelings he took to his grave without ever speaking aloud.

Maybe that was a just and fitting punishment for letting Caleb go at all. Maybe if Molly had just held on a little tighter or held on to his voice a little longer, it might never have come to this.

He supposed he’d never know.

At least the others had helped him live with that for a few days. Maybe they could help carry him further, and he could do the same for them. And if he occasionally forgot himself and let himself start hoping right along with them, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing as long as it got them all through the day.

That had to count for something.

*  *  *

They set out especially early on the seventh morning, when the sky was still grey at the edges. Zadash was close and no one wanted to waste any further time.

When the sun finally properly rose, it illuminated the grand city on the horizon, close and getting closer with every roll of the cart’s wheels.

All of them were momentarily so overcome with relief that they cheered, attracting no small amount of stares from other travelers on the road with them. Nott passed around her flask in celebration this time, and this time Molly was happy to take a drink, toasting Jester before passing it along to her.   

From there it was just a matter of deciding which temple to try. Jester’s initial plan was to try for the Raven’s Den, since she remembered best where it was. Beau pointed out that asking a goddess of death to bring someone back from the dead might be pushing their luck, and vouched for the Knowing Mistress’ temple instead. “First off, she really hates this other god – the Whispered One? And he’s supposed to be pretty undead. So I figure if we tell them that Caleb died fighting a vampire, that’ll get us in good. And Jester, you said that even the Traveler couldn’t teach you how to do this? It was kind of forbidden god knowledge? Well, she’s all about knowledge getting spread around. So they probably won’t mind just teaching us the spell and letting us handle shit from there.”

No one could come up with a better argument than that, so they asked around and got directions, which got easy to do very quickly once Beau turned her coat blue-side out.

Molly tugged on Jester’s sleeve as they were parking the cart outside in the temple yard. She glanced at him curiously. “What is it, Molly?”

He held up the sketchbook, open to another mostly-blank page. He’d soon owe her a new one, at this rate, with how many pages he’d chewed through on the road. _I’ll watch the cart._

“Are you sure?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m sure it will be fine. This is a _temple_ , who would steal from a temple?”

Molly raised an eyebrow at her, then nodded towards Nott. Jester looked over at the goblin and winced. “Right, yeah. I guess we probably don’t have the only Nott in the world.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the pen hovering over the paper, Molly hastily scrawled an addendum: _Don’t want to be there if this doesn’t work_.

“Molly...” she reached out to squeeze his free hand, trying to smile for him. “It will work! I know it!”

He smiled back, but she could clearly tell he wasn’t entirely convinced.

 _There’s a lot of ways something like this can go_ wrong, he wrote, by way of explanation and, perhaps, apology. Jester stared at the words, then back at Molly, and she suddenly looked so _sad_ for him that he felt guilty for letting on that anything was wrong at all.

So before she could answer and somehow change his mind and make this harder on all of them, he closed the sketchbook, passed it and the pen back to her, and pushed her towards the temple doors.

“I’m going, I’m going!” Jester protested, as Nott laughed at the sight they made. “Jeez! We’ll be back in a little while, Molly. All of us. You’ll see.”


	22. The Opposite of a Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mighty Nein participate in their first resurrection ritual.

The cleric they met inside the temple didn’t even have time to finish hemming and hawing about there being a fee for the services they were requesting before Nott upended her satchel onto the floor, dumping out what proved to be a total of seven hundred and thirteen gold pieces, some of which were in platinum.

Beau was about to argue the point when the cleric miraculously accepted that as the fee for both providing materials and teaching Jester the spell. Nott, however, glowered up at the monk and shook her head. So the four of them were led to an alcove set into the main body of the temple itself where a tall stone slab was sitting, big enough to hold a body. Jester left her friends there to get Caleb…situated, and allowed herself to be led off to a small inner chamber, where most visitors who didn’t have seven hundred and thirteen gold probably weren’t allowed to go.

The spell to raise the dead turned out to be not  _that_  different from her revivification spell, just a lot longer and more involved. Diamonds were still required, though the ones the priest handed to Jester in exchange for the gold were obviously much rarer and more beautiful than the ones she’d kept on hand so far. She made a mental note to spend some of her platinum share on another batch like these, because she knew she wouldn’t be keeping them. There were also words to say. She couldn’t just make them up the way she sometimes did for big or powerful magics. So she spent a little time trying to commit them to memory.

When she was done, when she was at least sure that she could sing the words without faltering even once as long as she still had the paper before her, the other cleric had to go and make things  _difficult_  by confiding some of his hesitations to her. “Someone has left you with the impression that this process is infallible,” he said gravely, as Jester rolled the parchment back up.

She felt her heart stutter in her chest. “It’s not?”

“I am afraid not, my dear. When the spell is assisted by friends or family, those with a strong emotional bond to the soul, then the chances of success can be quite high…but they are not guaranteed. The magic can fail at the last moment, or a soul’s connection to this world may have grown too weak. More to the point, the soul must be  _willing_  to return to life, and some do choose to remain in the afterlife and enjoy whatever rewards await them, rather than returning to a life of mortal suffering.”

“Caleb will come back,” Jester said flatly, staring fixedly at the old man. “Caleb will  _want_  to come back. He misses us, I know he does.” He wouldn’t want them to keep being sad and missing him.

Except…would he? Jester couldn’t help but dwell on that as she was led back to join the others. Caleb so often seemed so  _tired_. Not just the sort of tired that came from not sleeping enough, though she knew he often had trouble with that, too, but also the sort that sometimes made him seem like he was carrying something really heavy all the time and didn’t have a place to set it down.

She could admit to herself in the worried privacy of her own mind that sometimes Caleb really seemed  _weary of living_. Like he was only going on because he thought he had to. That was an awful thing to think and an awful way to feel and she’d  _tried_  to ease that weariness whenever she’d seen it in him. But what if she hadn’t done enough? What if Caleb was somewhere really good and he wouldn’t want to come back and be so exhausted again?

…she’d never know until she tried. She would make the attempt, and if he chose to remain, well…at least she would know it  _was_  his choice, and he was happy. She could dwell on that, going forward, instead of the memory of him bloody and still and cold in Molly’s arms.

Better to think of Caleb being somewhere else, somewhere nice, rather than just being  _gone_.

She consoled herself with that, let that thought bolster her so she could keep her head held high as she made her way back to her friends with the scroll in one hand and the diamonds in the other. When Fjord looked up and saw her coming, she smiled for him. “I’m ready!” she called. “Let’s do this!”

Of course, it wasn’t quite that simple. She still had to explain their part in all of this. And she still actually had to  _see_  Caleb’s body, which Jester realized too late that she hadn’t had to before. His face and his empty eyes had been horrible enough but at least with Molly clinging to him so tightly, with everyone else making sure he was all wrapped up while she dealt with Maxwell, she hadn’t had to see the  _wounds_.

Her spell had worked, and that was wonderful. For a little while she’d been afraid that she might have failed, that she might have done it all wrong and what was wrapped up in the blankets would prove to be a rotting ruin that Caleb wouldn’t even recognize anymore, let alone want to come back to. But the coins were still in place over his eyes. The spell had held. Caleb proved to be almost entirely unchanged from the day he’d died. The only difference was that the blood had long dried on his clothes and stained the inner layer of cloth he’d been wrapped in. But that just made it easier to see the great, jagged gashes that had been carved all along his torso by a vampire’s will.

Jester pressed her hands against her mouth, reminding herself forcibly to breathe. When Beau quietly asked if she was still with them, however, she was able to nod and fully join them inside the alcove.

They stood, one to each side of the slab, and Fjord, Beau, and Nott looked to her expectantly.

“Okay,” said Jester, laying the diamonds on Caleb’s chest and then unfurling the scroll. “So the good news is, you’re all going to help me with this.”

“Say what now?” asked Fjord, sounding almost nervous.

“Well, I am going to cast this spell, and that is going to let us find Caleb. But it will be easier to make it so he can come back to his body if you guys help. You know, four voices are louder than one! We have to show him the way. That old guy said you can do pretty much anything. You can pray, or talk about good memories you have. Stuff like that. Oh! And sometimes it helps if you have something to focus on. Maybe something you think Caleb would be attached to.”

“Shame Caleb’s such a fucking hobo that I don’t know if he’d have anything,” Beau grumbled. 

“Actually…” said Nott, slowly, like she was sneaking up on whatever idea had come to her. Jester started with surprise when she looked over to see that Nott had removed her mask and was staring fixedly back at her. “Jester, where did you get that necklace?”

“That…?” She pressed her hand to her chest, realized what Nott was talking about, and drew out the amulet Caleb had given her from under her blouse. Jester’s eyes went wide. “ _Oh_! Oh, wow. Nott, how did you know I had this?”

“Saw you staring at it a couple of times on the road. Did he give that to you?”

“Well I didn’t  _steal_  it, if that’s what you’re asking. Do you know what this was for, Nott?” She felt foolish for even asking. “Do you want to use it for your part of the spell?”

“I think,” said Nott, with some solemnity. “That if you gave that amulet to Beauregard, she could use it and think of some very good things to say.”

Now  _that_  was a surprise. Jester stared at Beau, wide-eyed. “ _You_  knew he had this too, Beau?”

The other woman mustered up an apologetic smile. “Long story. Not mine to tell.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “If you don’t mind, though…yeah, yeah I think I could think of something to talk about if I was holding that. Do you mind?”

Jester passed it over without hesitation, and Beau clutched it so tightly that her knuckles went white. “Thanks,” she said. “Think I’m good now.”

“What about you, Nott?” asked Jester.

“I have something,” said Nott, who had gone back to looking at Caleb’s face.

“Fjord?”

Fjord held out his hand, and the falchion materialized. “I don’t have anything of Caleb’s, but maybe this’ll help? I don’t know, I just keep thinking…sailors always like to talk about how sound travels better in water than air. Like how whale song can go for miles. Maybe that’ll hold for magic, too.”

“Ooh! Your magic making my magic even louder. Very smart.” She offered him a thumbs-up of approval, and he smiled in relief.

And then…that seemed to be it. Everyone had an idea of how to help. She looked at her three friends and saw that everyone looked determined – scared, but determined.

She felt much the same.  

“Okay,” said Jester quietly as she forced herself to stare down at Caleb’s face once more. “I’m gonna take the coins off now. And then I am gonna do this thing. So if somebody isn’t ready you should say so right now.” She still wasn’t entirely sure  _she_  was ready. She wasn’t sure any of this felt real.

“Think we’re set,” said Fjord, looking to the other two, who nodded their agreement. He took a deep breath. “Do what you’ve gotta, Jester.”

“You can do this,” Beau added softly.

“We’re almost done,” said Nott, and even she sounded a little disbelieving.

 _Are you still with me?_  Jester asked, of the only one who could hear her thoughts. She felt her holy symbol grow warm with reassurance, and relaxed just a little more. The Traveler was still with her, even here. She reminded herself that she could do anything as long as that was the case.

Jester nodded, nodded again, then reached out and gently removed the coins from Caleb’s eyes, first one and then the other. She felt something in the back of her mind  _snap_  as the spell came undone, as the clock started up again.

Now or never.

She held the scroll before her and started to sing.

*  *  *

Jester had a beautiful voice. Jester was a very good singer, when she cared to be – sometimes she got so wrapped up in enjoying the act itself that she let such minor concerns as carrying a tune in a bucket fall by the wayside.

That wasn’t the case here, though. Maybe it was something in the magic itself, but her voice was pure and clear, rich and  _haunting_  in a way that seemed to resonate in Fjord’s bones as she sang. He felt a shudder of some strange power echoing through him, and a glance at the others told him that they were feeling the same, increasingly swept up in the magic.

A flash of light caught his attention from the diamonds on Caleb’s chest. They’d already been glittering faintly from the light coming through all the many windows here in the temple. Now it was like there was a fire burning  _within_  them, and though they scattered light all around the little alcove there was also a light taking shape  _above_ them, born of that fire. The light was a silver nimbus, twisting forever in on itself, shining from within. Fjord somehow knew, in the way he’d first known how to summon his blade, what that light meant.

He knew the way was open. The time to speak was now.

He closed his eyes, held the falchion before him, and let himself fall fully into thoughts of water and salt and darkness, calling for his patron. This was another god’s temple, but he was quite certain that the thing who had given him this sword was nothing you might call a god.

It had also been somewhat angry at him for the past several days, perhaps for allowing himself to be drawn into serving another, however slightly. Fjord just hoped it had gotten that anger out of its system, because now he prayed to it with all his mind, heart, and soul. He knew it wasn’t a god. He hoped it still appreciated the thought, if it was capable of that.

_I need him. You know that._

The sense of being  _watched_  was suddenly overpowering, along with the sense of trying to see something that steadfastly did not wish to be seen. But that was fine. Fjord knew it was listening and understood.

The falchion’s glow grew brighter, taking on more defined notes of blue and black and green that played on the walls and the faces of his friends. The smell of salt was almost palpable, and Fjord felt his hair growing damp. In the distance, he heard the song of whales, harmonizing with Jester, carrying her voice to impossibly distant places.

And just for good measure, just in case Caleb really  _could_  hear, he spoke.

 _“Learn. Grow. Provoke. Consume,”_ he said, in a voice that echoed with his patron’s will and power. “There’s still a lot more of that for both of us to do. I always got the sense that you were struggling to learn  _something_  to do with magic, and that was always kind of a shock, since you’re probably the smartest man I know. But whatever it is, I think the world will be better off when you’re done. This side still needs you, Caleb.  _We_  still need you.”

*  *  *

Fjord fell silent, and Beau suddenly, somehow realized it was her turn.

So a friend’s life now genuinely depended on her, Beauregard, being good with words. Well, bringing people back to life probably wasn’t  _supposed_  to be easy.

Cold blue light swirled around them, mingling with the silver glow over Caleb’s chest, as Jester sang and her words were echoed by strange, deep, distant voices. Beau tossed the amulet up, saw the way it gleamed in the light, then caught it and held it tight.

She took a deep breath.

“You told me once that you thought you were a disgusting person. Well…we all are, in our own ways. But sometimes people like us are the only ones who can really see what’s wrong with the world. People like us are the only ones who can  _fix it._ ” Beau screwed her eyes shut tight and thought of him, focused on her memories of him, good and bad and all of them so  _important_. She would never have enough words to convey that. She tried anyway, even as her eyes stung with tears.

“You can still do good for people. You can still help people. I don’t want you to deny yourself that, I don’t want you to hide from that. You don’t  _have_  to hide anymore. You still belong here, Caleb.  _You still belong with us._ ”

 *  *  *

And that just left her.

Nott was proud of herself for how steady her hands were, as she reached towards the small of her back and retrieved a bloodstained dagger she’d kept hidden there all this time.

“Caleb,” she said, and her voice sounded very small and weak in the vastness of all the power swirling around her. She took in a shallow, shuddering breath and tried again. “This is…this is the dagger I killed you with. I’ve just been thinking, all this time – there were so many great things you were supposed to do. You were supposed to, to become someone so important and strong. Even more than you ever were to me. And I t-took all of that away from you. And I’ve heard stories about how people who died with a lot of unfinished business can come back as angry ghosts or horrible monsters. Especially if…if their killer is still walking around free.”

Damn it. Nott felt tears in her eyes and knew she wasn’t remotely strong enough to stop them. But she forced her words out through the tears anyway, because she had been thinking about what she would say to Caleb all week and now the chance was before her and she owed it to him not to waste that. Especially since it might be her only chance.

“And I don’t want that for you, Caleb, I really don’t. When you die, I want it to be a peaceful death where you’re happy because you did everything you wanted and you have a lot of friends with you. None of this was supposed to happen to you, so you should come back and fix it, you should…you should take your revenge on the one who killed you so you can be free to live a good life. Please, Caleb,  _please_  come back, I…”

_Oh, you’re coming, too? What a good day this is!_

_You know if anything– I’ve never really said this out loud before, but if anything you’re more like a “schwester”, a little sister to me._

_And I’ll tell you another secret. I like them, too. I get that they’re angry. I don’t agree with them. But I get it._

_No pressure on you, but if you ever want to talk more about it, the door is always open for you, Nott. When you are ready._

_It’s all right, this was not you, I...I am not angry. This was not your doing, not truly. I, I want you to remember that, Nott, please..._

“…I really,  _really_  miss you.”

And maybe that was selfish of her but it was also the truest thing she would ever say in whatever remained of her wretched, miserable life.

*  *  *

Jester’s song came to an end, and the silvery glow over Caleb slowly faded. Nott felt panic seize her heart all over again as she looked from her boy to her friends and back again. “Is it working?” she asked, scarcely daring to breathe otherwise.

Jester didn’t answer right away. She just sort of…slumped, panting for breath, and she was smiling but she wasn’t saying anything and Nott was torn between hope and desperate panic that she was about to be punished for hoping. “Jester!” she called again, more insistently, leaning towards her friend. “Is it working?!”

She felt a hand drop heavily onto her shoulder. Nott scowled up at Beau, only to see that Beau was staring at the altar with wide eyes. “Nott,” she whispered. “ _Look_.”

“Holy shit,” she heard Fjord gasp from the other side of the body.

Nott heard Caleb take a deep, shuddering breath.

Then she did look, of course, she looked back to him wildly and she suddenly couldn’t decide whether to laugh or weep for joy and so found herself doing both. Because there lay Caleb, and he was  _breathing_. She could see color coming back into his face and when she heaved herself up onto the stone to look, she could see the great, ragged wounds in his torso knitting themselves healed.

Caleb was breathing, a little fast and slightly unsteady like  _he’d_  just worked a very complicated spell as well. His eyes were half-open and a little unfocused, like he was still struggling to wake in a way that was so achingly familiar, so very  _him_. After a moment, he started trying to sit up. “Oh,” Nott heard him mumble, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Oh,  _scheiße,_ I…” And it  _was_  clearly an effort for him to even attempt to sit up. His movements were clumsy, like he’d gotten out of practice at using his own limbs. Fjord moved to help him, and Caleb looked up at him and smiled gratefully and then he looked right at Nott with his blue, blue eyes.

Nott could barely manage a startled squeak and an anxious flinch as Caleb reached out and pulled her to him in a ferocious hug. She hadn’t been expecting a hug to begin with, she’d been expecting quite the opposite, and so it took her an embarrassingly long moment to realize what exactly what was happening.

Then her vision went blurry with tears. And that was  _stupid_ , it was so stupid that she should be crying right now because Caleb was here, he was alive and she didn’t want to cry or do anything that would make it harder to look at him and see him breathing and seeing and  _being_. Nott sniffled pathetically and clung back to him with all her strength, burying her face in his chest and basking in the sound of his heartbeat and his voice instead.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered to her, rocking back and forth a little – maybe for her sake, maybe for his, maybe both. “It was not your fault. It was not you. And, and I will keep telling you that until you believe me, Nott.”

Damn it all. How was she supposed to keep her cool in light of that? Nott surrendered her battle against tears entirely, letting out a heartfelt sob and trying to burrow her way deeper into the warmth and peace and  _absolution_  of his embrace. “Are we good?” she asked, trying to raise her voice above a choked whimper and failing miserably.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “We never weren’t.”

“So,” Beau said, a little awkwardly, as Nott broke down again. “I take it that means you…heard us?”

Nott heard Caleb make a shy little noise. “Yes.”

“Well,” said Beau. “ _Shit_. That’s embarrassing.”

Nott felt him chuckle as well as hearing it. “Was I not supposed to?”

“I think you’re making fun of me,” Beau said, and Nott felt her wrap her arms around them both and pull them close in a hug. She felt Caleb lean heavily against the monk. “And I guess that means it really is you.”

And then there were others, other arms wrapping around them, and Nott heard everyone else welcoming Caleb back, talking about how much they’d missed him, about how impossible and wonderful this was. She heard Caleb talking to them, telling them how he’d missed them, expressing disbelief and wonder at what they’d done, thanking them all so profusely.

And Nott wanted so much to add her voice to theirs’, because all of that was true, but somehow she found that she was just blissfully content to let all the laughter and joy wash over her like a tide.

Until at last, Caleb let go of her and swung his legs off the slab, clearly bracing himself to stand. Nott frowned even as she pulled away – she could sense a sudden tension in him, as if something awful had just occurred to him, and what could possibly be awful right now?

“Mollymauk,” Caleb said, looking around at all of them, plainly worried. “Where is…is he…?”

His legs buckled as soon as he tried to put weight on them. Jester was there in an instant to catch him, drawing his arm around her shoulders and guiding Caleb to lean on her. Nott nodded her approval and, after a moment’s uncertainty, Caleb seemed to remember how to use his legs. When Nott quietly slipped her hand into his, his fingers only shook a little as he gripped hers' tightly without any hesitation. Nott could personally have died happily then and there. The fact that she was still alive seemed an impossible blessing, but today also seemed to be the day for those.

“Molly is right outside,” said Jester, smiling in reassurance. “Just watching the cart. He will be  _so_  happy to see you, Caleb.”

“Just outside…” The news made Caleb slump visibly in relief, which made everyone step forward to try and keep him from losing his balance again. Caleb didn’t seem to notice. In fact, Caleb was laughing himself breathless as he leaned against Jester.

“It worked,” he said, sounding as delighted as a child. “It  _worked_.”

*  *  *

There were some things that needed seeing to before they could go and reunite properly, however. The priests insisted on taking a look at Caleb before he was allowed out, casting a few minor spells and running a few strange tests and asking some apparently random questions. When Caleb noticed Nott’s hand itching towards her dagger the longer they were forced to delay, he squeezed her hand and gave her a minute shake of the head and she forced herself to relax, for him.

“I think they only wanted to make certain I was not possessed by anything unpleasant,” he mused, as at last they made their way outside.

“You aren’t, right?” asked Beau.

“Apparently not. I would trust a cleric to know better than me on that account.”

“He possessed by anything 'unpleasant'?” Fjord asked Jester, who was still walking on the other side of Caleb from Nott in case he got unsteady again.

“The Traveler told me he is a-okay!” Jester declared, beaming fit to burst, swinging her hand where it was holding tight to Caleb’s.

“That is good to know,” said Caleb, and he sounded so tired but he also sounded amused and fond and happy. Nott glanced up at him again and her heart felt so, so warm with joy at the sight of him smiling.

Maybe things really were going to be okay.

As they stepped outside into the late morning sun, Nott turned her attention back to the way ahead. When she did so, a flash of movement caught her eye. Her gaze snapped to where Molly was sitting in the back of the cart, staring at them all in shock.

But as Nott watched – as she was perhaps the only one to watch, since everyone else was talking – Molly slowly got off the cart without looking away from them, without looking away from Caleb. And then he raced to join them, until he was close enough that the sound of his footsteps got everyone’s attention just before Molly himself stumbled to a stop in front of Caleb, panting slightly, staring at the wizard as hesitation and hope warred in his expression. He was practically holding his breath.

Caleb broke the silence first. Nott was proud of him. “Molly,” he said, reaching out to squeeze Molly’s shoulder, perhaps because the tiefling also looked like he was about to fall over. Caleb was smiling, too, and his eyes were so bright and warm. “Hello. It is…it is  _so_  good to see you.”

Something unsaid passed between them, something in their eyes. Then Molly seemed to understand something, and whatever it was, it made him smile even as tears gathered in his eyes.

“Caleb,” he said, like it was the most beautiful sound in the world. “ _Caleb_. It’s you, it’s really…”

And then words seemed to fail him all over again, except none of them really had time to worry, not even Nott, because Molly surprised all of them by pulling Caleb close and kissing him soundly on the mouth.

Judging by the look on Molly’s face when he pulled away, he’d also surprised himself. Everyone was staring at him, Caleb was blushing fiercely and looked like he was in shock, and Nott wasn’t sure whether to laugh at Molly or shout at him. Molly was blushing fiercely, too, after all - Nott wasn't sure she'd ever seen the look on him before.

But it wasn’t in Mollymauk Tealeaf’s nature to ever be embarrassed for long. So he just smiled at Caleb, sheepish but genuine, before pulling him into a proper hug. After a moment’s hesitation, Caleb returned the hug and pressed his face into Molly’s shoulder, and Nott had a feeling it wasn’t just to hide the color in his cheeks.

“Welcome back,” said Molly. “Don’t you ever,  _ever_  do that to us again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact that I only just realized after some sleep!
> 
> This is the first time all the Mighty Nein sans Yasha have been together since Chapter 1.


	23. High on Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today is the first day of the rest of Caleb Widogast's life. Now that the Mighty Nein are all back together again, they're determined to spend it celebrating. 
> 
> Beau returns a favor, Fjord offers some help, Molly gives a gift, and Nott casts a spell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Around about the time I was halfway through this bit, I realized I had officially lost the fight on what exactly constitutes a reasonable chapter length. 
> 
> The past couple of times I've been able to break things up to spare you guys a 7k - 12k chapter. Couldn't really find a good place to do that here, even setting aside the chapter I added! So congratulations, have fun. I guess it's only to be expected that everybody had a lot to say.

“Hold up a sec,” said Beau, just as they were leaving the Leaky Tap, having settled their cart in the stables to leave them free to wander.

Caleb did so, not really thinking much about it, glancing at her curiously in time to tense up as she reached for his head with  _something_ in her hand.

“Easy, easy,” she murmured, as she slipped the necklace around his neck and tucked it under his shirt. “Just thought you’d want this back as soon as possible.”

His wits caught up with him, and Caleb fished the medallion back out to stare at it. “Thank you,” he whispered immediately, because she was absolutely right, and then he put it back under his shirt. A few other relevant details ground themselves into place. “I gave this to Jester.” Why was Beau the one giving it back?

“Yeah, you did.” He could hear the smile in her voice as she slung an arm around his shoulders and urged him to walk before they fell too far behind. “Why’d you do that?”

To give himself a moment to even begin to consider how he might answer that, Caleb looked towards the others where they strolled along a little ways ahead. Jester and Fjord were chatting, as were Molly and Nott. Molly’s voice was rasping and weak – Caleb hadn’t noticed right away, after the shock of  _certain events_. But it was impossible to miss now, even from this distance, partly  _because_  the tiefling was barely audible. It had been Jester who'd mentioned to Caleb that Molly had been without his words for a solid week on the road, but he was recovering now, and that was so very good to see.

Even if Caleb felt his cheeks going hot when Molly and Nott seemed to feel him looking at them, to notice that he’d fallen behind. They looked back at him, even if the worry in their expressions faded as soon as they saw Beau was still beside him. Caleb still motioned for them to turn back around, smiling reassuringly –  _I’m fine, I am fine._ And, just for once, he was, too.

But Beau was still waiting for an answer, a fact she reminded him of by pointedly nudging an elbow into his ribs. “Sorry,” Caleb mumbled, then took a deep breath.

“It, ah, it s-seemed like the best possible course of action, at the time. I thought that Virago did not know she was outside trying to help us, but if he grew suspicious and searched for her, then everything would get a great deal harder.”

“You were right, by the way. He totally, absolutely didn’t have a fucking clue she was out there until she started chopping off heads on the front lawn.” Beau snorted in amusement at the memory. “Fjord started calling him on his bullshit. The look on his face when he said her name, you’d think someone had asked me when Molly’s birthday is.”

Caleb laughed softly. “I can imagine.”

“Weren’t you scared, though?”

Beau absolutely noticed the way he tensed up again, though she waited to let him decide what words he would say in reply. “Can you be a little more specific, Beauregard?” he finally asked, a little weakly. “Because if you mean in general, the answer is ‘yes, pretty much constantly’.”

He felt her squeeze his shoulder a little, then risked a glance at her to see that Beau herself was watching the group ahead of them. Apparently deciding that they were far enough back from the others, she still lowered her voice a little further to ask: “You know, the reason you started wearing that thing in the first place? Weren’t you scared of that being a  _potential problem_ if you gave it to Jester?”

 _Ah_.

Caleb swallowed past the sudden tightness in his throat, then nodded. “Absolutely,” he whispered. “But I thought, if he and Virago wished to fight over me, then so much the better. And if he turned up tomorrow, then at least I helped ensure she lived through the day. She needed it more than I did, back then. I, I knew that I could not let my own fears for an uncertain future put all of you in even worse danger  _right then_.”

They walked in silence for a few moments more, and Caleb let the chattering of his friends up ahead wash over him and soothe those old fears. He was alive. He had the amulet back. He shouldn’t have had any more reason to fear, or at least, no more reason than usual.

At last, Beau patted him on the back before replacing her arm across his shoulders. “That’s kinda what I figured you were thinking. Good to hear you say it, though. And I don’t know if it would be, like, weird, to say that I’m proud of you? But I am, so I’m gonna say it. I...look, all of us know now what you went through for us. But not everybody knows how hard it was for you to put yourself through that risk specifically. I do. And it might have kept her alive, so that was a really good thing you did, and I just wanted you to know that.”

Caleb felt something warm and light curl around his heart, easing the strange, phantom chill that still lay over him like a shroud. He smiled, staring at his feet, and lifted a hand to pat hers’ - awkward as ever, but hopefully she knew he was being sincere. “Thank you, Beau.”

“And hey, who knows? Maybe he checked in while you were dead and won’t know that you’re alive again so, like, you’re off the hook?”

“That would be nice.” Caleb privately doubted it, because if there was any magic his friends knew about, then Trent Ikithon almost certainly knew about it as well. But even if he did, well, no matter. The chase could start again from here.

If he’d had the choice to do it all over again, Caleb would have made the same decision in a heartbeat.

He blinked in surprise when Beau suddenly laid the back of her hand on his cheek, and then his forehead. “Fuck, you’re cold,” she said, before reaching over to fuss with his scarf. “I could feel it through the coat and I thought I was going nuts.”

He felt himself blush a little, his gaze falling back to his feet. Caleb shrugged uncertainly, and managed to mumble: “The priests said that was normal. It should clear up in a few days.”

“Okay, but it’s  _not_  normal,” Beau insisted stubbornly. “It’s, like,  _summer_  out. You’re not supposed to be cold. Let’s find something to warm you up.”

Caleb stifled a yelp as Beau suddenly started walking faster, dragging them both up to properly rejoin the rest of the group. “Hey, Jester!” she asked. “You know the Trispires, right? Anywhere we can go to get some hot drinks?”

Jester glanced over at them, seemed to see that Beau was asking on Caleb’s behalf, and tapped her chin in consideration. “I think so,” she said. “And it’s not that far. Let’s go!”

No one else seemed to object, and so they changed course to follow Jester’s lead, heading for the Trispires. “I am sure there are places we can go to get hot drinks that are not there,” Caleb said to Beau, as they went along.

“Yeah, but the Trispires are fancy. And fancy places are good places to be when you wanna celebrate. Besides, I figure we can pick up some good shit for breakfast in there, too. You hungry?”

Caleb opened his mouth, closed it, and considered the question again. “I don’t think so?” Thinking back, even setting aside the time he’d been  _gone_ , he hadn’t eaten anything all day before the fight with Maxwell. By rights, he should have at least been feeling some hunger pangs, especially considering that he’d used up all his magic. But he wasn’t.

“You’re probably hungry,” Beau said, sounding mostly sure of herself. “Trust me.”

“Simple enough.”

The end result was the lot of them crowded into one of the nicer bakeries in the Trispires for everyone to order a late breakfast. No one would be satisfied until Caleb accepted a few hot, fresh pastries for himself and a cup of equally hot spiced wine to go along with it.  

Once they all gathered at the edge of one of the district’s little parks to eat, however, Caleb soon found himself grateful for their insistence. At the first bite, he almost moaned aloud. Nothing had  _ever_  tasted so delicious, not even after the times when he’d been genuinely starving. It was all he could do to bring himself to stop eating long enough to take a drink every now and then. The wine was a little too sweet, but the heat of the cup as he cradled it in his hands was pleasant, and the burn in his throat as he took a swallow was bracing.

“Bear claw?” Beau asked, sitting down on the bench next to him and offering him a half-eaten pastry. “I think they’ve actually started making ‘em with cinnamon.”

Caleb made to shake his head, stopped, considered his current state, then took the bear claw with a nod of thanks and shoved it in his mouth.

“Guess you were hungry,” Beau said, smiling wryly.

Caleb nodded. “Thank you,” he mumbled, and those were all the words he let himself say before he went back to eating. She deserved to hear them, after all. And the edge of sudden hunger was finally starting to fade, but the food still tasted far too good to stop.

“God,” said Beau, apropos of nothing, after making her way through two additional pastries. “I really wish you could have been there to see it.”

“See what?” Caleb asked around a mouthful.

“You know, see him  _die_. It was pretty great, and you deserved to see that.”

Caleb made a disappointed sort of sound in agreement as he took another sip of wine. “That would have been nice,” he said glumly. He did not like to think of himself as a vindictive man, but he knew that was exactly what he was, and there were precious few beings in the world that he  _hated_  as much as he’d hated that vampire. The fact that he'd missed his chance to piss on the remains would probably haunt him until his next dying day.

“I could, like, try to describe it for you? I know it wouldn’t be the same, but...”

Caleb set down his cup amidst the pastry crumbs scattered on the bench between them. Then he shifted in his seat to face Beau and clasped her hands between both of his. Now it was her turn to stare at him uncertainly, and that made for kind of a nice change of pace.

He took a deep breath. “Beau,” he said, with some solemnity. “Leave  _nothing_  out.”

She blinked, and then she beamed, and then she called Nott over to help.

Caleb was pretty sure they embellished a fair few details for his benefit, and he loved them dearly for it. In the meantime, perhaps noticing how ravenously hungry he’d been, everybody else handed over an extra pastry from their own breakfasts for him. By the time they wandered away from that little park, their impromptu feast concluded, Caleb was finally feeling full again.

*  *  *

Of course, it didn’t take long after that for everyone to realize that Caleb was still walking around in the clothes he’d died in, bloodstains and all. It didn’t take long after  _that_  for everyone, even Nott, to insist that they go somewhere to buy him new ones.

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” Caleb protested. “We were going to stop by the Invulnerable Vagrant anyway. One of the Pumats can clean me up, surely.”

“You still can’t just walk around in the clothes you  _died_  in, Caleb!” declared Jester, aghast, as she dragged him along and absolutely no one moved to stop her.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s…it’s…it’s bad luck! Or something. It has to be.”

“I don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of thing,” Fjord added, scratching the back of his head. “But I’m with Jester. That sure  _sounds_  like the sort of thing that should be bad luck.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” said Caleb stubbornly. “Besides, I am not giving up my coat. I  _like_  my coat.” It had thirty-two pockets, inside and out, and that was a very useful thing.

“How about this,” said Jester. “You let us buy you a new  _everything else_ , and then we ask Pumat to clean up your coat?”

Caleb was about to see if he could push his luck any further when he felt Nott squeeze his hand. “I really don’t want you to have any more bad luck, Caleb,” she mumbled, anxiety clear in her voice, and when he looked at her he also saw Molly nodding emphatically in agreement.

And so he let out a sigh of defeat. “Oh, very well.” The relief on Nott’s face would have made his surrender worth it even as Jester punched the air and cheered her success.

Fortunately, buying clothes proved to be not as much of a trial as Caleb had feared. Beau led the way to the shop where she’d gotten the blue lining sewn into her coat. From there, Caleb dug through their secondhand crates until he came up with a shirt, pants, and scarf that were still in one piece as well as being worn soft in the way he preferred clothes to be. As he searched, he dimly overheard Fjord reassuring the stricken shopkeeper that Caleb had not just survived a murder attempt, which was technically true.

The scarf was yellow, the shirt was blue, and the pants were black, but they  _felt_  right when he pulled them on and that was what mattered. He even managed to find a new pair of gloves that weren’t singed half to tatters, which was an unexpectedly pleasant surprise all its own. And then, with his part of the bargain fulfilled, the Mighty Nein made their way to the Invulnerable Vagrant.

“Pumat!” Jester called merrily, as the bell over the door jingled to announce their arrival. “Can you fix Caleb’s coat?”

“We’re here to buy other things, too,” Fjord added hastily. “But, y’know, maybe while we’re browsing.”

“Like maybe a spell to let me sink through floors?” Caleb asked, embarrassment making his voice a little higher than it might normally be.

“It’s not like I told him you died in it,” Jester shot back, before her eyes went wide with the realization that she just had. “Shit.”

There was only one Pumat behind the counter, with another off talking to a customer deeper in the labyrinth of shelves. The third was straightening up a bit, and judging by the clatter and clanging coming from the back rooms, Prime was hard at work.

The one behind the counter looked up and beamed warmly at them as they all crowded inside. “Well if it isn’t some of my most distinguished customers!” he said, clapping his big furry paws together and coming around to meet them. “Welcome back to Zadash, my goodness. What can I do for you all, besides the cantrip?”

“Healing potions?” asked Fjord. “We are absolutely out of healing potions.”

“Maybe check out what other shiny new toys you’ve got,” Beau added, cracking her knuckles in anticipation.

“I’m just in the mood for something new,” Molly said.

“Well, healing potions can certainly be provided, and Prime has been really burning the midnight oil on some doohickeys I think you all are gonna love,” said the Pumat happily. He glanced over to the Pumat who was cleaning the shelves. “Hey, me? Could you leave off the dusting and check out the back room for…”

“I heard ya, I heard ya,” said the other Pumat amiably, ambling away towards back.

“Good, good,” said the first Pumat, and turned his attention fully to Caleb. “Now let me see…hm.” He sniffed the air thoughtfully. “Just died recently, huh? Yep, I can tell.” When Caleb darted a puzzled glance at his friends, they all looked equally confused. “Suppose I should say congratulations, then. Welcome back to life at all. In the meantime…” He clicked his fingers, and Caleb winced to feel the strange static buzzing of the prestidigitation spell over his body. The magic scoured up the dried blood and other, older messes as it went until it all floated in a cloud between him and the firbolg, a cloud which Pumat vanished with an easy wave of his hand. “There we go. Clean as a whistle.”

“Well, still a couple of little tears,” said Jester, tilting her head and examining Caleb critically. “But I can fix those.” She half raised her hands, seemed to remember herself, and smiled apologetically at him. “Um, if you don’t mind, Caleb.”

“In for a copper piece,” he said, and gestured for her to continue, bracing himself. Fortunately, the mending spell proved far gentler on his senses than prestidigitation spell had – he felt it only as a soft warmth emanating from Jester’s hands as she smoothed them over the damaged sections of his coat. Torn thread and rent cloth knitted itself neatly at the magic’s behest.

“I’m sorry if I am being a little bossy, Caleb,” she whispered to him as she worked. “I mean, it’s just, you  _died_. Let us buy you pretty things!”

“I don’t  _want_  pretty things.”

“I know, I know. You want a lot of paper and ink, right?”

“ _Ja_.” He didn’t have any new spells to copy over, which meant that today was a rare opportunity when he could secure materials and have them on hand when he needed them.

“Well, at least now you have a pretty coat,” she said, stepping back to survey her handiwork. “Good as new!”

Caleb tilted his head, turning this way and that to inspect the coat as well. “Better than new. Or better than when it was new to me.” The coat definitely hadn’t been this clean or whole when he’d first dug it up years ago. “Thank you, Jester.”

“You’re welcome!” Then she kissed him on the cheek and darted away among the shelves before he had time to do anything but blush.

Fortunately, one of the Pumats stepped back into Caleb’s line of vision to distract him. Caleb could hear the other two already talking to his friends, counting out healing potions. “And how much paper and ink will that be today, my friend?”

Caleb set his bulging coin purse down on the counter. Everyone had already made sure to pass along his share of what they’d taken from Maxwell’s vaults. “I will let you know in about ten minutes.”

“Fair enough, fair enough. Just flag down one of the me’s when you’re done.” And Pumat bustled off to continue seeing to the shop.

Caleb started pulling coins out of his purse and stacking them neatly on the counter. “One, two, three, um…thirteen, fourteen, twenty four…”

He’d gotten up to two hundred and twenty one when he saw Fjord stepping into view out of the corner of his eye.

“Whatever your total is, add two hundred on me,” said the half-orc, setting down another pouch of coins alongside Caleb’s neat little piles. Caleb stared at it in disbelief for a moment before glancing over at his friend. Fjord leaned on the counter and grinned at him, looking decidedly pleased with himself.

“Th-that is, um, that is very kind of you, but there is no need for that,” Caleb stammered. “I don’t actually have any new spells to copy over. This is, ah, just a way to actually have paper and ink on hand when I need it, for a change.”

“Yeah, you do,” said Fjord easily. “Have spells to copy over, I mean. Didn’t Jester mention it to you?”

Caleb shook his head. Fjord, at least, seemed happy to be the one delivering the news. “We, uh, we sorta had our pick of that vampire’s library before we passed out the other books to the rest of the town and they burned the whole place to the ground. I grabbed up some of the interesting lookin' stuff first, of course. Don’t quite know  _what_  I found yet, but Jester and Nott both assured me that it’s some pretty good magic. Think you might get to put this paper and ink to use sooner than you think.”

Caleb  _stared_  at Fjord for a long moment before he became aware that his mouth was hanging open slightly. His brain had ground to a halt from the sheer number of possibilities before him. Somehow the only thought he could get to stick in his brain was to wonder if it would be weird to kiss Fjord right now, too.

“You even made sure the other books didn’t get burned?” he finally managed to ask, in a very small voice.

“Of course.” Fjord looked a little surprised Caleb was even asking. “Didn’t think I could have looked you in the eye if I hadn’t.”

“Fjord, that is…” Damn it all, he was  _not_  going to get emotional in Pumat Sol’s shop. With slightly shaking fingers, Caleb went back to counting out coins for an excuse to look away, though he kept up the count in his head this time. “Short of bringing me back from the dead, of course, I think that might be one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me. You saved me some magic, and, and you saved books in my name. Thank you.”

“Caleb…” Now Fjord sounded a little sheepish, but also impossibly fond. “I was happy to.  _We_  were happy to. Hell, you’re an easy guy to shop for welcome back gifts for.”

Caleb found that he couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “You brought me back from the dead. Gifts are redundant, at this point.”

“I disagree,” said Fjord, easy and mild as ever, and Caleb felt his heart grow a little warmer when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fjord carefully section off a pile of coins and start counting them out, too – one by one, in neat little piles, as it should be. “Bringing you back was the least we could do. Especially since you went through a lot for us, Caleb, when you didn’t have to. Some of us couldn’t really appreciate that at the time, but we can now, and so we can start to make up for it.”

“You still don’t have to--”

“But I still want to,” Fjord finished, cutting him off gently but firmly. “Suppose you’ll just have to accept that. Hell, maybe you  _shouldn’t_  be thanking me. It’s your first day back and I’m already trying to keep you busy.”

“I enjoy being busy,” Caleb said without hesitation. “Copying spells over is actually pretty soothing, and when it is done, I have something else to help the group with. What’s not to enjoy?”

He heard Fjord make an amused sort of sound. “Nothin’, sounds like. ’Course, I imagine you’ll want to spend a bit of time this evening getting your cat back. Don’t worry, I was just over there with Jester to double check, and you should have plenty of charcoal and incense to have me sneezing up a storm soon enough.”

“Ah. Yes, of…of course.” The other thing he hadn’t let himself thinking about. Caleb tried to put a gold piece on top of another stack, but his fingers were suddenly shaking so badly with anxiety that he knocked the whole thing over. Caleb swore, staring down at the mess. Then, as Fjord moved to help him pile it back up again, he took a deep breath.

“Fjord? Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure. I can even keep it.” 

“I don’t actually know what will happen, when I try to call Frumpkin back.”

Now it was Fjord’s turn to go still, frowning worriedly. “How do you mean?”

“It’s…here is the thing. When a wizard without a familiar first casts that spell, they are making a pact with some sort of otherworldly being. There are, ah, celestial and fiendish spirits who will consent to serve, but I always found the fey easier to understand. In exchange for his service, Frumpkin was allowed to sort of, um, nibble at the edges of my own natural magic energies to sustain himself, and just see some interesting shit in general. That is normally enough, for a fey.”

“I confess, I’m still not seeing the problem, Caleb.”

“The problem is that this pact lasts either until the wizard deliberately dismisses the familiar for good…” And that was not a road he intended to go down again. “…or else, it lasts as long as the wizard lives.”

“Ah.” Fjord clearly understood now.

“So, um, if I am understanding the situation correctly, and to be fair this is not a situation I have any experience with, Frumpkin is under no obligation to return to me when I cast the spell. I can seek him out, I can call for him, but he very well might not come.”

In a couple of hours, he might find himself with a new cat, or even another spirit that didn’t want to be a cat at all. He could have forced it, of course, but that wouldn’t be the same. Even if he did, it wouldn’t drape over his shoulders the same way, its purr wouldn’t sound the same, it wouldn’t  _be Frumpkin_.

“But he also might,” said Fjord, his tone reassuring. “Why wouldn’t he, Caleb? That cat loves you.”

“Perhaps.” He certainly liked to think so, sometimes, but he also tried to never entirely forget what their relationship was – a transaction, a deal. “I have not always been the best master.”

“And he probably wasn’t always the best familiar. Honestly, Caleb, you act like you’re such a trial to be around.” And, as if to prove Caleb wrong, Fjord wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged Caleb to him tightly for a moment. “It’s a new day. In more ways than one. Maybe try to go a little easier on yourself from here on out?”

Damn it all. His throat was tight and his eyes were stinging and Caleb was absolutely getting emotional there in Pumat Sol’s shop. He knew that Fjord was not one for big demonstrations of affection, not the way Molly and Jester and sometimes even Nott were. And so for his friend to be doing this for him right now, there could be no denying how much he meant what he was saying.

“I suppose if I forget,” Caleb murmured. “I have all of you to remind me.”

“Sure do,” said Fjord cheerfully. He pulled away for the sake of pushing his half of the money over to Caleb. “Total comes to three hundred and sixteen gold.”

Caleb nodded and surveyed his own stack. “And here we have three hundred and twenty nine.”

“With my two hundred, that puts you at eight hundred forty-five?” When Caleb nodded, Fjord grinned. “That should keep you in paper and ink at least through the night. Come on, let’s go get you set up.”

Together, they managed to scoop the money back into Caleb’s purse without any of it falling onto the floor. When Fjord turned away to flag down a Pumat, Caleb found himself reaching out to catch the other man by the wrist. "Thank you,” he murmured, in the brief breath before life picked up again.

Fjord looked back at him and smiled. “Glad to have you back, Caleb. Everybody missed you.”

They left the shop not long after that, freshly laden down with potions and paper and a few other interesting new trinkets.

When evening came, the Mighty Nein returned to the Leaky Tap to eat, drink, and properly celebrate. The Trispires might have been fancy, but they all agreed that the place was a little too quiet. They wanted to be surrounded by life, by music, by people, and by opportunities to trick those people out of coin.

Caleb, however, was already starting to feel his reserves of energy flagging a little bit. He agreed with his friends that being somewhere surrounded by other people sounded nice, but he knew he was fast losing the ability to participate in any sort of fun.

Fortunately, in the end he didn’t even need to think of how to voice that feeling aloud. His friends understood without him having to say a word. When they got to the bar, the Mighty Nein claimed a table in the corner, ordered a few rounds, and kicked Caleb upstairs to get his cat back.

He came down again an hour later, with Frumpkin in his arms and purring louder than he’d ever heard, nuzzling and licking his face like he couldn’t stand to stop. He was also being incredibly insistent, over the mental link that he and Caleb shared, that Caleb not stop petting him at all. Caleb was happy to oblige, still murmuring to his cat what a good and wonderful friend he was as he sat down with his other friends again.  

He didn’t even mind when Fjord looked so smug at the sight of them together again.

All together, the Mighty Nein spent a little while talking and laughing amongst themselves.

One by one, however, they drifted away in search of other amusements within the establishment – all but Caleb, who was left with his paper and his books and his back safely to a wall. It was quiet in the corner, but the general buzz of life and chatter and joy washed at the edges of his awareness like a gentle tide, grounding and soothing. Whenever he looked up, he could see his friends scattered around, talking, laughing, drinking, living, as they orbited around him and one another over the course of the night. Someone checked in with him periodically, but they never said it was a matter of checking in.

In turn, he sent Frumpkin to patrolling a path throughout the tavern, weaving around his friends’ legs, nosing at their food, nuzzling their faces and licking their fingers – all except for Fjord, of course. After all, barring allergies, in his very definite opinion there was nothing could keep good spirits high like having a cat’s attention.

*  *  *

“Hey, Caleb!” Beau called from two tables over where she’d joined a couple of drunken dock workers. “Bet ya three gold I can arm wrestle these losers at the same time!”

“Can we make it three silver?” he called back.

Beau facepalmed. “Caleb, I swear to god, if you spent all your gold again already...”

He held up three silver coins, she nodded her begrudging agreement, and then turned away to prove her point.

The dock workers proved to be surprisingly fierce opponents, but Beau successfully negotiated the challenge to three out of five. Caleb enjoyed the show well enough, so that it took him a few moments to notice that someone was now standing beside him, watching as well.

“This seat taken?”

Caleb looked up to see Molly standing there, drink in hand. The tiefling smiled wanly at him – his voice was still a rasping mess, but as far as Caleb could tell he’d held onto his words since that morning. He was recovering.

They both were.

“It is now,” Caleb said, and nudged the chair out with his foot. Beau would hopefully understand. Molly nodded in thanks, sat down with his drink, and then just...stared at Caleb for several long seconds. Caleb found that he didn’t mind much, because he caught himself taking the opportunity to look Molly over as well. His friend looked exhausted, red eyes half open, shoulders slumped. But he was alert and aware and smiling. He was here. It would probably take a little while longer before Caleb didn’t have to constantly reassure himself of that fact anymore.

Molly drew Caleb out of his contemplation by giggling all of a sudden. “You look  _weird_ ,” he said with feeling. “Those clothes, and your face.”

It took Caleb a second to understand what Molly was getting at. But then he did, and he chuckled. “I could go out and find some mud to splash on my face, if that would make you feel better,” he said. After a pause, he added: “I might do that anyway. It might make  _me_  feel better.”

“Good. You look entirely too respectable.” Molly’s smile faded into something more somber, his eyes took on that gleam they did when he was trying to see straight through someone. “How are you feeling?”

Caleb opened his mouth to give an easy answer. And then he closed it. He’d been trying to avoid thinking about how he felt all day, truth be told, and his friends had been wonderful in indulging that need without even having to voice it. But maybe that, in turn, meant he owed them an answer when they wanted one. He’d almost literally gone to hell and back for them. A little honesty was not something he should have been scared of anymore.

He knew that resolution wouldn’t last, but it did for now, and maybe that counted for something.

“Six hours ago I was dead,” Caleb said quietly, his gaze falling to his drink. “Six hours ago my heart was not beating.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Molly nod slowly. “Yeah. For about a week now you’ve been just a bundle in the back of the cart. But it’s beating now. Isn’t it?”

Caleb reached out, took Molly’s hand, and pressed it against his chest, over one of the scars that ran across his heart. He heard Molly gasp softly, and Caleb felt himself blushing fiercely as he did so, but it truly seemed the best way to answer. The best way to reassure.

After a moment, Molly pulled his hand away. But when Caleb looked up again, he saw that his friend was smiling a little easier, and his tail had gone back to swaying lazily behind him rather than trailing on the floor. “Healthy as a horse,” Molly confirmed. “Welcome back to the land of the living.” He toasted Caleb and downed another swallow of his drink. Caleb joined him in it.

“Everything still doesn’t feel quite...right?” he said, when they’d set their tankards down again. “Everything still just feels heavy and, and clumsy, and loud and sharp and a little cold? The priests said that is normal, though. That it should fade in a few days.”

“It did for me.”

“Ah, yes,” Caleb felt his chest ease a little with relief. “Of course, you would know.”

“Not as much as I thought.” Molly’s smile took on a wry, bitter edge, as his gaze fell to the stained, scarred tabletop. “I think I was the only one wondering if it would really be you opening those eyes and walking out of that temple. Makes me feel like kind of an arsehole, in hindsight.”

“You shouldn’t,” Caleb said, looking away and swallowing painfully. “For all we knew, it might not have been. It’s good that someone thought of that. For the others’ sake.”

“I’m glad it was you. For whatever that’s worth.”

“So am I. I...missed you all. Even in the other place, even when I was only a ghost. I forgot to, for a time, but then I did, and, and now here I am, I suppose.” It seemed a horribly insufficient way to describe an impossible story – he felt himself blushing a little again in embarrassment.

“Here you are,” Molly agreed, darting a glance up at Caleb like he still couldn’t entirely believe it, like Caleb was the most wondrous sight in the world. His voice was so warm that it chased a little of the lingering chill from Caleb’s bones all on its own.

He saw something in Molly’s eyes, just for a moment – an expectation or a question or a hope. Something that the tiefling was building to say, and then just as quickly decided not to. “Anyway,” said Molly. His voice was a little too high in that way it sometimes got when he was trying to pretend he wasn’t on the verge of panic. “I just wanted to check in, and you said you’re fine, so I’m just gonna go and…”

He made to stand. Caleb moved faster than he’d thought himself capable of, his hand darting out to grab Molly’s wrist before the other man could turn away. Molly went tense as a wire, like he’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe.

“What do you need?” Caleb asked quietly. He could not bring himself to meet Molly’s eyes, not when something this heavy and important hung unspoken between them. So he just slid his hand down to squeeze the tiefling’s fingers, holding for three and easing up for three, the way Molly had sometimes done for him when the world got to be too much. It took a few tries before Molly finally, properly started breathing again. But when he did so, it was a deep, shuddering breath edged with a sob, and Caleb saw tears starting to gather in his eyes.

It was like a dam breaking. Molly slumped back into his seat and clasped Caleb’s hand between both of his. Then he ducked his head to press his brow against their joined fingers like a supplicant.

“Caleb,” he said. “I have an  _enormous_  favor to ask of you. It’s not fair, when you’ve already done so much for me, but you’re the only one who could do this, so here we are. And it’s okay, if you say no. But if you said yes, or even just that you’d try, I would be more grateful than any words could express.”

He must have sensed that Caleb was about to speak, because Molly held up a hand and smiled weakly. “Don’t say anything just yet. Let me give you the full and awful sales pitch, first. Then decide. You owe yourself that much.”

Caleb closed his mouth, and settled in to listen. It took Molly a couple of false starts before he really got going.

“I didn’t really get the chance to ask the others that much about happened to them while I was...where I was. For obvious reasons, I suppose. But I got bits and pieces. Maxwell, he fucked around with your memories, didn’t he? So you wouldn’t worry about Jester, so you wouldn’t want to look for me?”

“Yes,” Caleb said quietly. Of course, Maxwell hadn’t bothered to make the attempt for Caleb. He still wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe the monster had just enjoyed making him feel alone and insane. Besides, he’d still had his chance to know what it felt like.

Molly hands tightened around Caleb’s, fingers trembling. He was staring at the tabletop again, clearly seeing nothing, tears still shining in his red eyes. Caleb’s heart ached with concern, with the need to reach out, but he was afraid that doing so might break whatever spell had given Molly the courage to speak at all. Caleb knew, probably better than most, that sometimes the words that hurt the most to say were what needed to be said.

For now, he just tried to keep his breathing steady, squeezing for three and releasing for three, in the hopes that it would let Molly do the same. In the end, it seemed to help, or at least Molly was able to start speaking again.

“He did the same to me,” Molly admitted after what felt like a minor eternity. His was voice little more than a whisper, sounding almost ashamed. “Not trying make me remember things that didn’t happen. Trying to make it so I remembered things that  _did_ , to someone who wasn’t me. Trying to put  _Lucien_  back in my head.” He spat the word as if it were acid in his throat, and it already sounded like it was hurting him to talk this much. “I don’t know if any of it was real, but it feels real, I started to know things he couldn’t have, things he was never there for.”

“Mollymauk...” What could he possibly say to that? What could he say to something so bitterly cruel and unfair, to the revelation that Molly had been through hell in more ways than even Caleb had known. “Molly, I am so sorry.” It seemed a poor start, but hopefully his friend at least knew that Caleb meant it wholeheartedly.

He seemed to, at least – Molly lifted his head and offered Caleb a shaky, hopeful smile. “You have it in you to be so much more of a wizard than he was,” he said, as earnest as Caleb had ever heard him. “And you’re already so much a better man. If you could learn the magic he used, you could take away what he put back, and...”

Ah. Now Caleb realized why Molly had cautioned him against agreeing.

His feelings must have shown on his face. Molly slumped a little, the wind going out of his sails and the hope out of his eyes. “You don’t have to say yes,” he murmured again.

“...I don’t have to say ‘no’, either,” Caleb said finally. It was a weighty, dangerous thing he was offering. He knew that, but it seemed that Molly knew it, too. “But, Molly, you should know - that sort of magic is, is enormously powerful. It  _is_  beyond me at the moment. With time, I could learn, but if this is something you are suffering through now then perhaps you should speak to Jester, instead.”

Molly shook his head immediately. “I thought about that, I did, but all I’ve seen is that she has magic to make memories what they were. And that’s kind of the opposite of what I’m after. Are my memories tied to this body, or to  _me_? It might work, but it might not, it might just leave me even worse off than I am. If I know you’re going to try, if you think you can do this  _someday_ , then that’s enough. I can manage.”

Caleb took a deep breath, feeling his lungs expand and his heart race and his hands curl a little tighter around Molly’s. “Then my answer is ‘yes’.”

Molly stared at him in open disbelief for a moment. And then he laughed, open and relieved and so, so happy, then suddenly he was moving around the table to Caleb’s side and Caleb felt himself swept up in a hug so tight that he could feel Molly’s heartbeat for a moment, too.

“Thank you,” said his friend, pouring perhaps every ounce of sincerity he possessed into those words. “ _Oh_ , thank you. I feel…damn, I feel like I can breathe again. You are just  _absolutely_  wonderful, Mister Caleb, and I won’t forget this.”

“You are welcome, Mister Mollymauk,” Caleb mumbled, feeling overwhelmed but not especially minding it right at the moment – especially when Molly pulled away to kiss him on the cheek. The tiefling clapped his hands together and then looked out towards the tavern, looking like he was ready to bound out there and go right back to wringing life dry. “Have a good evening.”

Molly nodded, turned to leave. Then froze all of a sudden and turned back again, and this time, his tail was lashing behind him in an unmistakable gesture of anxiety.

“Right!” he said. “Right. Almost forgot.” He grinned weakly, and it reminded Caleb suddenly and sharply of the smile he’d given Caleb outside the Knowing Mistress’ temple, right after he’d…

Just like before, he was able to feel a little better about the heat in his face due to the fact that Molly really did seem to be blushing, too.

“I have a gift,” said Molly. “For you. To thank you for, well everything.” Something seemed to occur to him – he frowned thoughtfully, then chuckled. “That’s a lie. ‘Gift’ implies that I’m going to take no for an answer. Here.”

He reached towards the back of his neck, unclasped something, and then drew a familiar red and gold periapt out from under his shirt, which he held out to Caleb.

It only took Caleb a second to recognize what was being offered to him, and he tried to shake his head. “Molly, no…” he began.

“What did I literally just say?” But Molly sounded amused, rather than offended, and solved the matter of Caleb’s hesitations by stepping in behind him to clasp the gift around his neck personally.

Caleb tried to protest anyway. “You need this.”

“Not as much as you do, apparently.” The clasp “clicked” gently into place. When Caleb reached back to try and undo it, Molly lightly smacked his hands away “Go ahead, ask me how many times I’ve kicked myself for not having given this to you before…well. Before.”

Caleb found that he truly did not want to think about that. He didn’t want to think of Molly berating himself for a  _week_  over Caleb’s fate when Molly himself had been rendered all but helpless. “Everything was, um, was moving very quickly, Mollymauk,” he said. “There were probably a great many things  _I_ should have done, but didn’t.” Even with so little magic left to him, maybe he could have found a way to save Nott rather than burning her. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“If you say so,” said Molly, a little  _too_  lightly. But if he didn’t sound entirely like he believed Caleb, at least he didn’t entirely sound like he  _didn’t_. “Well, if that was then and this is now,  _now_  this will keep what happened to you from ever happening again. And you’ll be doing us both a favor for that, Caleb. I can’t  _see_  you like that again, I will not make it through a next time. So instead of getting all shy, wear this for me. For my sake. Okay?”

“…okay.”

“Good boy.” Molly kissed the top of his head, squeezed Caleb’s shoulders, and then stepped around to lean against the wall beside him once more. He made a play of shading his eyes to survey the bar again. Caleb wondered just how much Molly was aware that his tail could be a dead giveaway in moments like this, as it thumped lightly against the wall behind him. “Well, that was a lot. I feel better. Do you feel better? I hope so. I really didn’t mean for that to get to be so  _much_. So I’m going to go and bother Jester now if you’re doing okay.”

Caleb had to get his words out all in a rush before Molly managed to slip away, and on some level he suspected that Molly was trying to slip away before he could.

“Can we talk about what happened?”

For a moment, he thought the tiefling was going to bolt, but Molly stopped just in time even though he kept his back to Caleb.

“Could you perhaps be more specific?” Molly asked, his voice too high again.

“Outside the temple.”

“Ah.” And he stayed frozen for a minute longer before half-turning to look back. Caleb felt his heart skip a beat to see how  _vulnerable_  Molly looked right then. How anxious and  _young_  he seemed. It really hit him then that Mollymauk Tealeaf was a man who had so far tried to cram a lifetime into three years, and had recently suffered enough for one over the course of a  week.

“Can we talk tomorrow?” Molly asked, half pleading. “I don’t…I’m not trying to weasel out of anything, I promise. It meant something, it did, or at least it did if you wanted it to. It’s just…” He ducked his head, chuckling a little dazedly as if the very idea was only hitting him there and then. “It’s been a  _long_  day, Caleb.”

“… _ja_. It certainly has.” Truth be told, Caleb wasn’t sure he  _was_  up for the idea of talking about whatever  _this_  was now, about whatever had happened or would happen going forward. He didn’t even know if he could  _have_  whatever Molly was offering. On some level, he still knew he didn’t deserve it. Even so, he found himself wanting it anyway.

Talking had to happen either way.

“Tomorrow, then.” He raised his mug in a toast to the very idea and drained it at last.  _Tomorrow_  was an especially good word right then that deserved a toast.

“Tomorrow.” Even Molly seemed pleased with the notion now that he’d spoken it aloud. His smile took on a more familiar edge – flippant, flirtatious, bright. “And so you know I’m serious…” He slid into the chair he’d so recently tried to flee and leaned in close once more. This time, Caleb surprised both of them by closing the distance between them himself and kissing Molly first, resting one hand on the back of his neck and clenching the other in the front of his shirt.

Molly made a startled sort of sound that might have been funny under other circumstances. For a cold moment, however, Caleb thought he might have somehow made a mistake already, found some way to fuck up the first day of the rest of his life.

But then, as the shock seemed to fade, Molly laughed in unmistakably genuine delight and flashed Caleb a warm, soft smile. “ _Gods_ , you’re adorable when you’re high on life.” And then, apparently determined to have the last word, he kissed Caleb once more on the forehead for good measure and then he was gone from his seat, darting back into the bustling crowd of people to cause whatever trouble caught his fancy.

Caleb watched him for a moment, chin in one hand, smiling fondly. Then he made to tuck his new necklace under his shirt. After a moment’s consideration, however, he left it out instead. Somehow, he didn’t mind if people saw this one.

He caught himself wondering, just for a moment, if something good and real might be within his grasp, if the universe would continue to be that impossible and wonderful, just for today. So as to avoid second guessing himself for a little while longer, he distracted himself by going to pay Beau her three silver. He hadn’t actually seen her win however many arm wrestling matches there had been, but he had every confidence in her anyway.

*  *  *

It didn’t take Caleb long after that to realize that Nott was no longer in the bar. He didn’t entirely know how long she hadn’t been in the bar, either, which was a little worrisome.

But he also didn’t see Frumpkin and, when Caleb closed his eyes and cast his senses into the cat’s, he saw through Frumpkin’s eyes that his familiar was walking down a side street alongside Nott. He couldn’t ask Frumpkin to look up at her, but he could hear what sounded like his little friend humming to herself. So things were probably okay.

Even so, once Caleb pulled himself back into his body, the first thing he did was pull out his copper wire, twirl it through his fingers, and whisper a message to Nott. “Nott? Hello? I do not see you here in the tavern. Is everything all right?”

She kept him waiting only a couple of seconds before replying.  _“Hello! I thought of something important and I needed to take a little walk. Frumpkin came with me so you could check on us. But I’m on my way back right now. You can reply to this message.”_

He did. “Okay. Well, I am still at the same table I was at before. I hope everything is all right.”

_“Absolutely wonderful! You can reply to this message.”_

“I will see you shortly, Nott.” Smiling faintly, he put the wire back in a pocket and went back to copying his new spells over.

It seemed like no time at all until he felt a familiar clawed hand tap him politely on the shoulder, shortly followed by Frumpkin flopping across his feet. Caleb set down his pen and looked around to see Nott beaming back up at him. “Hello!” she said, and then moved her hands out from behind her back to reveal a riotously colorful bouquet of various flowers. “I brought these for you. I had to sneak into a few different parks and look in a lot of little alleyways, but I found these, and I think they’re very nice!”

“They are, very much so.” More to the point, Caleb was impressed. Most of the city’s parks were in the Trispires – had she gone that far and back just to pick these? She must have, and quickly at that.

Nott drew herself up as straight as she ever stood, looking immeasurably pleased with herself. Then something seemed to occur to her and she grew serious once more. “I was going to braid more flowers in your hair before all of this happened. I really was! But I was just looking out for nice ones, and I waited too long, and look what happened! So, um, I want to put these in your hair. Please. If that’s okay.”

Caleb opened his mouth, closed it again, then found himself casting his mind back. The night Maxwell Virago had first strolled into their camp felt like a lifetime ago – he supposed it had been, for him – but he realized then that Nott was right. The flowers that made up Nott’s latest goblin protection spell had been singed off his hair two days prior, and she hadn’t found any she liked well enough to replace them, and before she could, the last  _two weeks_  had happened.

“Your logic is sounds as always,  _meine freundin_ ,” Caleb said, with some solemnity, nodding his agreement. “It is good that you thought of this so quickly.”

She looked relieved to the point of dizziness, as Caleb moved his books and papers aside to give Nott some room to sit on the table itself. This she did so, hopping up onto the tabletop and positioning herself behind him as Caleb turned his chair face the wall. She got herself comfortable, even draping her legs over his shoulders, and spent a moment pensively considering her next move. While she did so, Frumpkin hopped up into Caleb’s lab and curled up, and he was happy to have another chance to pet his wonderful cat.

At last, she started to work her fingers through his hair, gently combing here and fussing there and braiding in flowers with the sort of delicacy that she normally reserved for picking especially interesting locks. Caleb found himself letting out a soft, content sigh at the feeling, slumping a little as he relaxed. Nott’s claws were pleasantly ticklish where they brushed against his scalp, her fingers fine and careful and sure of themselves and the sort of intimate contact that would normally have left Caleb trying to itch out of his skin was still immeasurably relaxing when it was her. Nott had always been the exception to so many rules. He was glad to fully realize, there and then, that this had not changed.

He caught himself wondering if Mollymauk might be a similar exception one day, too.

“How are you feeling?” Nott asked, drawing him out of those complicated thoughts.

Caleb hummed thoughtfully, considering the possible answers. Somehow, he knew that the one he’d given Molly would not be the best idea here.

“Better than I was this morning,” he finally said. “Better than I was yesterday. Still a little strange, but the clerics said that was normal, and should clear up in a few days, and as far as I can tell it is. How are  _you_  feeling, Nott?”

Her fingers froze for a brief but telling moment, which in a way was all the answer Caleb needed. But he was grateful when she tried to answer properly, even if what she said was a transparent lie.

“I am very well, thank you.”

Time to go for broke, then. “It’s just, the things you said earlier, I am worried about you.”

Now he could feel the tension thrumming through her, with how close she was sitting. “What things?” Nott asked, her voice traitorously unsteady.

“I don’t remember very much about...about where I was. Stars, mostly. There were so many stars. But I remember hearing all of you, I remember the things you said.”

“Oh,” said Nott, in a very small voice. “Caleb, I--”

He cut her off, gently but firmly. “And I remember what I felt. When I heard you say what you did, when I heard that you were still blaming yourself, I remember thinking ‘I have to go back. I cannot let her go through life thinking this way. I have to tell her she is wrong.’”

Frumpkin let out a sad sort of chirp in agreement. Caleb gave him a few grateful scratches under the chin. “Frumpkin was there, too, He heard me.”

“He was?” Caleb felt his stomach lurch to realize that Nott sounded like she was on the verge of crying. He quickly turned around to face her again, even if it meant that the flower she’d been working into his hair fell to the floor. Sure enough, there were tears in Nott’s big yellow eyes, even as she smiled weakly to see him looking at her with open concern on his face.

“I thought you were just saying that,” she said. “When you said it wasn’t my fault, I thought maybe you didn’t really mean it, you were just saying that.”

He could see that she was trembling a little with the force of all the emotions building up inside her, and Caleb reached out to squeeze her shoulders as if he could hold her in one piece. “Dying men have no reason to spare someone’s feelings, Nott. Why would I have lied?”

“Because you’re  _you_ ,” she said, as if it was the simplest answer in the world, and Caleb felt his heart skip a beat and his throat go tight. Yet again, he thought about how utterly, impossibly unworthy he was of the devotion and adoration Nott showed him with no hesitation.

But right there and then, he was grateful for it all the same.

“I came back to life to tell you again, as many times as you need to hear it,” he said, his voice rough with emotion and insistence. “I hope that is enough to help you see that I mean it, Nott.”

She nodded fervently even as the tears overflowed her eyes. “It is. It really, really is.” And when she leaned forward and hugged him, he was happy to cling to her in turn.

Nott was his best friend, and part of the reason why was because she was desperately clever and impossibly observant when the situation called for it, so much moreso than anyone else might think to look at her. Caleb was reminded just how true this was when, against all odds, she caught him by surprise again.

“It wasn’t your fault either, you know,” she mumbled, her voice muffled a little where it was pressed against his shoulder. And she must have felt the way he tensed up, in equal parts confusion and, perhaps, reflexive denial, because Nott laughed weakly and pulled away to smile at him.

“When you tried to fight back,” she said. “When you burned me. I...I remember how upset you were, Caleb, but that wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. You were trying to survive and, and find a way to set me free. You were scared. But you must have known that I would have always wanted you to do whatever you could to try and stay alive because you are important to me.”

Caleb let out a shaky sort of sigh, trying to blink his eyes clear as he reached out to hold her hands. “I had so little magic left, or I swear, I could have found a more, um, a more elegant solution than just setting the hall on fire.”

“And that’s okay!” Nott declared fiercely, squeezing his hands in turn, staring at him intently. “Because I know why you didn’t have very much magic! You’re the reason the monster was all burned up when he came to Beau and Fjord and I, right? And you’re the reason he couldn’t use anything but really weak magic against us. You’re the reason we were able to win, Caleb, because you fought so hard before.”

Her words were surprising, but on some level he realized they shouldn’t have been. Caleb thought back to that fight in the basement, his last few moments. Maxwell had plainly not expected Caleb to get back up again after ravaging him with a spell that, to all appearances, existed exclusively to cause agonizing pain. Maxwell had clearly not expected a fight to break out mere moments later, because he’d wasted his most powerful magic solely on torturing Caleb and Molly for fun.

But Caleb had also given him a fight. Caleb had made Maxwell burn more magic just for the sake of putting him down. Caleb had stood tall, he hadn’t been the one to run, and even a vampire would have needed some time to recover from being burned half to nothing.

Even if he had not been able to stand with them, he had cleared the way for them. And that was far from nothing.

“Thank you, Nott,” Caleb said softly, smiling at her. “That is...that is very good to know. Thank you. And, and I believe you. I do.” He wasn’t sure he did, not fully, not yet, but he knew that he would try to. He chuckled wryly. “What a pair we are, hm?”

“A pretty good one, though. I like us.”

“I like us, too.”

Nott probably didn’t entirely believe him yet, either, but that was fine. Emotions were unruly, unpredictable things, but they could be wonderful, too. The two of them would manage, in the end, together.

Caleb reached down to pick up the flower Nott had dropped. Frumpkin beat him to it by hopping off his lap to grab up the bloom in his mouth, chewing on it happily. Caleb sighed in equal parts exasperation and fondness and scratched the cat behind the ears. “Sometimes I think you really do prefer this shape,” he said, before glancing back at Nott. They still had plenty of flowers to work with.

In fact…

“Do goblin protection spells work on goblins as well?” he asked.

Nott blinked, seemingly startled. “I don’t know.” Then she seemed to realize what he was getting at, and grinned toothily. “Probably would for you, though. Since I taught you everything I know, and all.”

Sometimes Caleb wondered if Nott saw him as similar to herself - as a displaced goblin, born into the wrong shape. Given some of his past experience with humans, that made him happy to think about.

Either way, Nott permitted him to test his theory. They swapped places so that she was sitting on the chair and he was sitting on the floor, then Nott pushed her hood down and let Caleb spend a little while braiding the rest of the flowers through her tangled nest of hair. He wasn’t quite as deft at it as she was, but that was fine. He could learn.

Later on she got in a drinking contest with three patrons at once. Caleb joined his friends to watch her claim her inevitable victory, and then helped make sure no one ducked out of paying his friends the money they’d lost betting against Nott the Brave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how long it will be, but I swear to god that the next chapter really is for reals the last one.
> 
> Maybe this worked out for the best, though. After all Caleb and Jester have been through together, they deserved a little bit of time just to themselves.


	24. Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb and Jester tell stories late into the night. Some of those stories are better than others. Some of the stories have unicorns in them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we are all forcibly reminded of the fact that Jester has a Wisdom of 18.

Whatever heavens awaited beyond this material plane, they could not possibly be more perfect than this.

The common room was empty but for a few sleeping drunks. Even the bartender had left to go to bed an hour ago. Caleb had moved to the table nearest the hearth, taking his paper and ink and cat and goblin along with him.

Nott was slumped heavily against his side, fast asleep and snoring noisily, one hand clenched in the fabric of his sleeve and the other closed tight around a few particularly shiny spoons she’d sneaked from behind the bar. Her slight weight against him was as comfortable and familiar as if nothing had changed. Frumpkin was an added weight in Caleb’s lap, curled up and purring. The fire was burning merrily after Caleb had tossed an extra log on it, the heat gentle and soothing on one side of his face and the light more than enough to let him keep working. He had paper and he had ink and he had new and fascinating magics to copy into his spellbook.

Life was good.

Everyone else had trickled slowly up to bed a while ago. Caleb had tried to convince Nott to turn in as well, though only halfheartedly. They both knew she wasn’t going to go that far from him, and on some level he still didn’t want her to. They also both knew that Caleb had no desire to sleep tonight, and at least she did not try to persuade him otherwise.

He probably could have slept, right here on this bench with the fire taking the edge off the mysterious chill that still had hold of him. But sleep would have meant either senseless oblivion or dreams, and he was not eager for either. Caleb had slept long enough, and he wanted to enjoy being awake and alive and aware for as long as he could. Copying spells was simple, methodical work, involved enough to keep him engaged but familiar enough to let his mind remain at peace.

This meant that he heard the footsteps coming downstairs into the common room, but he didn’t think much of it until he heard those footsteps approaching him. His weary mind refused to process exactly what that _meant_ right away, however, and Caleb felt his shoulders going tense with uncertainty.

“It’s just me,” Jester whispered, and Caleb relaxed again all in a rush. When he looked back at her, she smiled and offered him a tiny wave. “Hi.” He saw her gaze dart to Nott, and knew that she was keeping quiet for the other girl’s sake. Caleb nodded gratefully for her presence and her consideration, then nudged the bench opposite him out with his foot. Jester wasted no time in moving to sit down.

“I thought you would be asleep,” he murmured, finishing off the line he’d been working on before he set his quill aside.

She smiled wryly. “I thought _you_ would be asleep, dummy. But your room was totally empty when I went to check on you.”

“That would be because we have not gone upstairs. Why were you awake to check up on us at four in the morning?”

“Um…” she seemed uncertain of how to answer for a moment, before finally settling on honesty. “Bad dreams. And when I woke up, I thought to myself, ‘I know how to feel better! I will check on my very good friend Caleb where he is sleeping in the next room.’ Only then I checked on you and you weren’t there.”

“Ah.” Caleb found that he was too embarrassed to keep meeting her gaze, at that. “I am sorry, Jester. I did not mean to upset anyone. I only…” And then he trailed off with a helpless shrug, staring at the paper but not seeing a word of what he’d written, because how could he admit this to her? She had worried so much for him, gone through so much for him, and he truly did not want her to concern herself with him further.

Unfortunately, Nott was not the only member of the group who could be exceptionally observant at all the most inconvenient moments. “Did you have bad dreams, too, Caleb?” she asked.

Sweet, innocent Jester, who could pick him up in one hand and now could see through him as clearly as Nott and Mollymauk could. She asked the question in such a soft and concerned tone of voice, but her words cut him to the quick and hit him as hard as a slap. Because while Nott understood Caleb better than perhaps anyone, she was also incredibly similar to him, and so what she saw she did not always say if she thought he was intentionally keeping quiet.

Jester, it seemed, had no such reservations.

Frumpkin woke at the feeling of Caleb’s fingers tightening in his fur. The cat opened on eye and turned to nuzzle himself against Caleb’s hand, purring a little louder, and that made Caleb feel brave enough to speak past the sudden tightness in his throat.

“No, but…I know I will, if I sleep. After everything, it’s, it’s really an inevitability, isn’t it?”

“Caleb…” And now he absolutely couldn’t lift his head to look at her because she sounded so _sad_. “You need to sleep, though. The other clerics said that was the only way you’d start feeling better.”

“I am not going to die again if I don’t sleep. I’ll just keep feeling like shit for a while, and eventually I will get tired enough to have to sleep whether I want to or not.”

He heard her make a decidedly displeased sort of noise. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You have done more than enough today, Jester. Thank you.”

Rather than appeasing her, his words only seemed to increase the tense, stormy atmosphere around her. He didn’t know what to say to set her at ease, but he knew one thing he could _do_.

 _Go to Jester_ , he commanded Frumpkin. _Be even more adorable than you usually are_. Frumpkin obeyed without hesitation, hopping off of Caleb’s lap and padding over to Jester’s side of the table to twine around her legs, mewling plaintively for attention. Caleb was able to make himself glance up at her for the sake of gauging her reaction.

Jester started in surprise, before looking down to see Frumpkin there. The way her face lit up at the sight was immensely gratifying. “Frumpkin!” Just as he’d known she would, Jester reached down and pulled the cat into her lap, petting him happily. “Hello, kitty! I really am so glad you’re back, I missed you a lot!”

“Frumpkin missed you, too,” said Caleb, relieved to see that she’d relaxed at least a little. “He had nothing but good things to say about your treatment of him while you were together. So on top of everything else, it seems you took very good care of my cat. Thank you, Jester.”

“Aww! Frumpkin, did you really say such nice things about me? Well you were such a sweet boy that of course I wanted to take really good care of you.” Jester half-lifted Frumpkin to nuzzle her face against his. The cat tolerated this with good grace, especially when it offered him the chance to bat at some of the dangling ornaments on Jester’s horns. “Oh! Right. Caleb, did Beau give you back your necklace? I gave it to her for the spell and I was pretty sure she would but I never asked.”

By way of answer, he drew out the necklace for her to see, and saw the tension visibly bleed out of Jester’s shoulders. “That’s good. I was worried. I couldn’t give it back to you when you were…the magic wouldn’t work, you know? But now you’re safe, right?”

“I…”

And then Caleb found that to offer reassurance to her now, much as he wanted to, would be a lie too great even for him to tell. “I don’t know, Jester,” he mumbled at last, looking away as he tucked the amulet back beneath his shirt. “I don’t know how often he was spying on me, I don’t even know for certain if he was trying to see me in the first place, I don’t know if a corpse in the back of a wagon is something that _can_ be magically scryed. But…”

He reached out to hold her hands in both of his, because as he confronted the idea of the conversation that he now knew must happen, Caleb found himself needing that support from her – the same support she’d offered him so freely when they’d been the only two people they could rely on.

“When I gave this to you, I promised that later I would tell you why I had it. That is still a story you deserve to know, Jester. You deserve to know what sort of person you put so much faith in.”

“I think,” said Jester, as seriously as he’d ever heard her. “That I know exactly what kind of person you are, Caleb. _But_ I would be interested to hear what kind of person _you_ think you are. After Frumpkin goes back to your lap.”

She looked delighted when Frumpkin obeyed her, hopping down off her lap and padding back towards Caleb, only changing course when Caleb requested the cat settle on his feet instead. That way, he could keep holding onto Jester, and he would have one extra obstacle between him and the urge to bolt.

He waited until Frumpkin had settled in, purring, and then took a deep breath. There really seemed to be only one way to begin. His fingers were already trembling and there was no hiding that from her, nor did he want to.

“…are we friends, Jester?”

“I think we are really great friends, Caleb! I mean, we always were, but especially now. You’re always really quiet but I got a lot of time to see how brave and smart and cool you are. What do you think? Do you think we’re really great friends?”

“…I would like to think that.” He surprised himself with how much he meant the words as he said them. Jester had always been important, of course, but her importance had related as much to the group as to him. Now he found that he would have burned the world down for her sake. Maybe it was only as a result of everything they’d been through to stop Maxwell Virago. Pressure and desperation and fear could do strange things to emotions. Then again, wasn’t that how he’d first grown so close with Nott?

Even so, the matter at hand still needed to be addressed. “If you change your mind, after you hear what I’ve had to say, if you don’t think that way anymore, Jester, then that is okay, truly. I would not blame you, nor would any of the others.” Even Nott knew how unforgivable what he’d done was, though she chose to ignore it.

Despite his resolve, his heart still went cold with dread when Jester pulled her hands away. Then he realized that it was only so she could cradle his hands in hers’ instead.

Her hands were so, so warm. And her touch was so careful and gentle that Caleb had to squeeze his eyes shut against the threat of tears. It didn’t do a thing to help.

“Okay,” said Jester, very quietly. “Tell me what you want to say, Caleb.”

He took a deep breath, and then another and another and _gods_ , it hurt so much already but she had suffered so much for him and he would do this for her.

“When I was younger, I grew up in a small township outside of Rexxentraum, called Blumenthal. My mother’s name was Una. My father’s name was Leofric. Everyone was very excited about me…”

And so he told her. He told her the whole sad, sorry tale of his life, the blood on his hands and the shame in his heart. He did not flinch, he did not shy away from offering up every awful detail to her. He was proud of himself for that much, at least.

It was harder the second time, which seemed brutally unfair. Maybe it was because he had to keep his voice quiet, so as not to wake Nott. She didn’t deserve to have to listen to this a second time. Maybe it was because Jester was nowhere near as stoic as Beau had been. Even if he wasn’t able to look at her once, he could feel and hear her reactions, the noises of pain and sympathy she made, the way her hands shook and sometimes tightened around his.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize that she was crying.

She was crying because of _him_ , and that almost broke him entirely. But he made it to the end.

“…and that necklace had been keeping me hidden for years. For five years. Until that _verdammter_  vampire caused all this trouble. I don’t know if he has found me, Jester. He might have. I…I would have loaned this to you all over again if that was what needed to be done, but the fact remains that you all might be in even worse danger _because of me_. And you deserve to know that.”

There. He’d done it. His heart was racing and his throat was dry and his mind felt full of fog, but he’d done it. Dizzy with the feeling of release, of the exhaustion that only came after hard exertion, Caleb finally lifted his eyes to hers’ once more.

There were still tears falling from her eyes. She looked as pained as if she’d just been stabbed, and when their eyes met she let out a little hiccupping sob, her hands tightening around his.

“Caleb,” Jester whimpered. “Oh my god, that’s, that’s really sad and I can’t believe that happened to you and I’m so sorry and…”

And then she apparently gave up on words and stood up abruptly before moving around the table to hug him.  It wasn’t nearly enough time for him to react, wasn’t nearly enough time for him to accept that was what she was doing, and so the next thing Caleb knew he was in Jester’s arms, her chin resting on top of his head. She was holding him _protectively_ , like something to be kept safe and cherished, and the _ridiculousness_ of it all made him giggle a little hysterically even as he leaned with a senseless hunger into the warmth of her.

“All of you…” he whispered. “All of you really are the _strangest_ people. I tell you the most awful things, I tell you in the plainest words I have what a _monster_ I am, and you give me a pat on the head like I am a child that just confessed to breaking a plate and I don’t…” His voice broke on a sob. “I don’t _understand_.”

She did not answer right away, but that was fine, because he was well and truly out of words. She just kept hugging him and a part of him _wanted_ to return the embrace. But – just as with Nott that awful first night – everything about him felt heavy as lead, body and soul. So all he could do was slump against the comfort offered by one of his best friends and sob as the freshly torn open wound bled freely once more.

“I think…” said Jester at last, sounding as if speaking was an effort. “I don’t think anyone could ever make me want to hurt my mom. But…when I was really little and I couldn’t go outside, my mom was how I learned anything about what anything was like. If she told me something was bad, I would have believed her. If she told me a person was bad, I wouldn’t have liked them. It’s just that my mom was good and didn’t lie to me like that, but that Trent guy--”

“I was not a child, Jester.”

“Yes you _were!_ ” It was a minor miracle that Nott had not awoken yet, but Caleb could only dimly find it in himself to be grateful. “Maybe you weren’t _really_ little, but you were still little enough that you had to go to school! And then that guy took you away somewhere and didn’t let you go places! So he was the only one who could tell you anything! And he was hurting you, too, so you must have been really scared…”

“That doesn’t matter.” It was true, but it didn’t matter. He should have said more, but it was clear she would not hear his excuses, just like Nott, just like Beau, and _he did not understand_.

“Caleb, I…do you want to know what I think? I think it was like with you and Nott.” She must have felt the way he froze with shock and disbelief in her arms. She kept talking anyway. “Nott isn’t _really_ little but she’s still not, like, all grown up. Right? And even if she’s got a lot of people she cares about, you’re still really important and special to her. And that’s okay, because you’re nice to her, but you could probably tell her a lot of really bad things, and she would believe you. That Trent guy wasn’t a good person, Caleb, and he told you a lot of bad things, and you believed him because he made himself really important to you, too. He didn’t do a good job of it but he was the _only_ one taking care of you! So if he stopped you wouldn’t have had anybody and that would have been so scary…”

It was not a perfect comparison. She must have known that. After all, Caleb depended on Nott as much as Nott depended on Caleb. Nott was so much wiser than Caleb had been at that age, she had seen so much more. She could have made it on her own, even if they were stronger together.

And yet, hadn’t he reflected just earlier this evening about how incomprehensibly deep her devotion to him was? How her love for him often seemed terrifyingly boundless? He knew Nott cared for everyone in the Mighty Nein, and so the lack of hesitation she had shown whenever mentioning to Caleb that they could move on if he wanted to was _awful_.

She was even his student, in a way, hadn’t he already taught her everything she knew about magic? And she took to it with just as much fervor and joy as he had, at her age?

It wasn’t a perfect comparison, but it was enough, it was enough to put in his head the mental image of himself acting towards her the way Trent Ikithon had acted towards him and no, _no_ , every muscle _seized_ with the wrongness of that image and Caleb knew, he absolutely _knew_ , that however broken and bad he was, he would never be that evil.

Once the reflexive revulsion passed, once the taste of bile eased, it was a strangely freeing realization.

“I would _never_ ,” he said, low and fierce and certain, enough that he almost didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice. “I would never do to her what he did to us.” He was not strong enough to keep from hurting her at all, but if his weakness was the cause, rather than any power he held in their relationship, then perhaps that was still forgivable.

“I know.” Jester still sounded like she was in tears but she must have realized that he was listening, that he was hearing her, even if he was still far from knowing what to do with any of the new thoughts in his head. She sounded steadier. “I know you are. And, and even if you did something really bad, Caleb, I don’t think that makes you a bad person forever. I don’t think you’re a bad person _now_. Bad people don’t lend me their cats and they don’t try to keep an eye on their sick friends even when their hand is hurt and bad people don’t braid flowers into their friends’ hair.”

His gaze fell to the tangle of flowers just barely visible in Nott’s hair where her hood had slid down a bit. They weren’t as neat as the braids she did for him, but it had felt _so_ nice to do that for her. The light was low, the flames in the hearth nearly burned to nothing from how long they’d been talking, but there was still enough light for him to see those flowers in Nott’s hair and think for just a moment about redemption.

“So you are not a bad person and I am not going to leave you, Caleb. You are still my really good friend, and I love you a lot.” She kissed him on the top of the head, as if to punctuate her point. “So there.”

Hugging her was a little awkward when she was standing and he was sitting, but after she spoke those words with such utter faith and conviction, there was nothing for it but to hug her anyway, sniffling pitifully around the last of the tears. “Thank you, Jester,” he mumbled. Her honesty emboldened him to add: “You are my very good friend, and I love you a lot, too.”

She grinned audibly at that, and suddenly it felt like Caleb could breathe again for the first time in an hour. “If I could have had a brother, I think it would have been pretty cool if he was you. Hey, what’s ‘brother’ in Zemnian, anyway?”

It was almost a relief to react to her words with something as mild as blushing again. _“Bruder,”_ he mumbled.

“Brooder!” she said brightly, and he laughed, because her accent was _terrible_. “Okay! That settles that.”

“Thank you, Jester. I…you have given me a great deal to think about, but for now I am…” He chuckled weakly, because all the twists and turns this night had taken couldn’t be anything _but_ hysterically ridiculous. “I am very tired.”

“Well, that’s good, right? Maybe now you will be able to sleep.”

“Mm.” He kept his tone noncommittal, because he absolutely was not sure about that, and in fact her words left him with something else to consider. “What about you?”

“I’ll be okay.”

Concern strengthened his spine and brought some life back into his body. Caleb pulled away, insistent when she tried gently to keep holding him, and stared up at her anxiously. Jester’s eyes were still red from crying. She looked leaps and bounds more exhausted than she had when she’d first come to check up on him, and now she was the one trying to duck the idea of sleeping at all?

Of course, he had been the one to burden her mind even further with awful truths and what must have been horrific mental images. All of this had come on top of what must have been an exhausting day for her as well, a day of casting magics that transcended the most fundamental laws of nature. He felt responsible for that. He felt responsible for _her_.

“When you were little, and you had bad dreams,” he said, because there was no child, no matter how pampered and luxurious their surroundings, that did not sometimes have bad dreams. “Did your mother ever tell you stories to help you sleep again?” His mother had.

“Sometimes,” Jester said, frowning in that way she sometimes did when she was wrestling to make the past more rosy than it had been. “But she was usually pretty busy at night. That’s okay, though – I’d just tell myself stories instead.”

That was heartbreaking to think about, but it also left Caleb with an idea how to mend things. “Come stay with Nott and I,” he said. “We can tell one another stories, and then…well, perhaps at least one of us will rest. And if not, it will be a better way to pass the night.”

Her face lit up like he’d just offered her the moon, her smile big and bright and so, so grateful. “That sounds really nice, Caleb. Thank you. Um…” Her gaze darted just past him, to where Nott still lay miraculously asleep. “Do you want me to carry Nott?”

“I will take Nott if you can get my papers,” he said, already moving to gather the little goblin carefully into his arms. “Carrying her is pretty much the only time I don’t feel self-conscious next to you.”

She laughed as she went to work stacking up his papers. Caleb left her to it, heading for the stairs with Nott in his arms and Frumpkin on his heels.

He stopped dead at the top of the stairs when Nott spoke up quietly, not sounding groggy in the slightest.

“You’ve never treated me like he treated you,” she whispered. She didn’t open her eyes, but she was smiling faintly. “I’ve known goblins who tried to treat me that way, and you don’t. That’s _why_ I care about you, Caleb. That’s why you’re important to me. Maybe now that you’ve heard it from us both, you’ll believe it.”

“Nott…” It seemed so impossible that he had not run out of tears tonight, but at her soft and simple reassurances, his eyes were stinging again. She must have guessed as much from the way his voice broke on the sound of her name, because Nott frowned slightly, half-opened her eyes, and then reached up to fussily wipe the tears from his cheeks. He let her do so, and then he hugged her fiercely and she was happy to hug him back.

“Thank you,” he murmured, because there seemed to be nothing more to say, especially since Jester was coming towards the stairs and Nott must have had a reason for pretending to be asleep.

It was a ruse she resumed as Jester joined them, paper in hand, pen stuck behind one ear. She smiled at him and he smiled at her, and then he unlocked the door to their room and ushered her inside.

He settled Nott on the bed and directed Frumpkin up and into her arms so she could have something to hold onto when she really did sleep. Then Caleb wound his silver thread around the room, sealing them safe within the alarm’s boundaries. Jester was already sitting by the bed with her back against it by the time he was done. He joined her there on the floor, close enough that their shoulders touched and their hands could easily overlap.

“Do you want to go first?” she asked.

“I am sure you know some fascinating stories.”

“I do!” She sounded wonderfully proud of herself. “There once was a unicorn named Trevor…”

Caleb listened quietly for a little while, until he thought he had a handle on the plot, such as it was. Then, with his free hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tuft of fleece, which he tossed on the floor just in front of them before murmuring a few words and twisting his hand just _so_.

And, just like that, the adventures of Trevor the unicorn were playing out on the floor in front of them, in utter silence and doll-sized miniature. Jester cut herself off with a long gasp of delight, before she threw her arms around him and hugged him again, muffling a squeal against his shoulder. He laughed softly, leaning his head against hers’ for a moment, which was all he could do with his hands occupied by the spell.

“Go on,” he said at last. “What happens next?”

She was happy to continue the story, as Trevor and his friends made their grand descent up the mountain in search of a wounded dragon. It was a ridiculous, nonsensical story. It was so utterly and completely _her_ that as he listened, Caleb felt what parts of his mind that weren’t focused on the spell going soft and quiet.

When she was done, he directed all the actors in her little play to take a bow before her. Then Jester got comfortable leaning against him, and Caleb started to tell a story of his own. Most Zemnian fairytales were much too dark for proper bedtime stories. He was fairly certain his mother had made this one up just for him. And it felt so, so wonderful when Caleb realized that he still remembered every word of it.

Just like before, he aided his telling with a small, silent illusion on the floor, depicting the characters going about the tale as it was told. Jester was a gratifying audience to say the least, gasping and murmuring appreciatively at all the right points. But as the story drew to a close he realized just how slow and sleepy her voice had grown, how she had grown so relaxed against him.

So he told her another story and made another little phantom stage to act it out on. He told her a story of a brave knight on a grand journey, of the loving mother she had left behind her, the friends she made along the way, and the wonderful father she found at the end of her road. And when he was done, when he risked a glance over at his friend, it was to see that Jester’s eyes were closed and she was smiling faintly, breathing evenly.

“Good night, Jester,” he whispered, soft as a breath. She hadn’t quite rested her head on his shoulder, mindful of her horns. She had it tipped back against the bed instead. But that was fine, that just meant he could lay his head on her shoulder instead.

Lulled by the sound of Nott breathing and his cat purring, lulled by Jester’s weight against him, firm and grounding, he was asleep before he knew it.  

*  *  *

Caleb woke slowly, to the feeling of sunlight on his face, of Jester cuddled up against him, a blanket drawn around them both, and others gathered around.

_“…the cutest thing I have ever seen.”_

_“They’re going to miss breakfast.”_

_“We’ll save ‘em some pocket bacon. Not like we’ve got anywhere important to be today.”_

_“Oh, he’s waking up.”_ Molly’s voice. Molly pressing a kiss to the top of Caleb’s head, tucking the blanket a little more securely around him and Jester. _“Sorry, darling. We’ll go be obnoxious downstairs.”_

Caleb forced open his eyes, and only managed it halfway. Before him were his friends, though they were little more than soft silhouettes, backlit by the late morning sun – blue and green and green and purple.

“ _Hush_ ,” he mumbled, his voice as stern as he could make it while also thick with sleep. “Jester is trying to rest.”

He heard soft laughter in various voices, he felt Nott pat his cheek. _“Just send us a message when you’re awake,”_ she said. He managed the barest possible nod before letting his eyes fall closed once more, and so he heard rather than saw them creep quietly out of the room and close the door behind them.

In the last seconds before he slipped into heavy, golden sleep again, he heard Jester mumble dozily from beside him. “Caleb?” 

He squeezed her hand where it had rested in his all night. “Everything is fine, Jester. Go to sleep.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Then they slumped against each other once more to peacefully sleep the morning away. There had indeed been bacon saved for them by the time they made their way downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus, we come to the end.
> 
> I know, I can't really believe it, either.
> 
> Thank you all for all the support you have shown me. This is unmistakably the best thing I have ever written, though, and while I am exhausted here at the end I am also so proud of myself.
> 
> Looking forward to what comes next. But, until then...
> 
> \---The End---

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pangurbanthewhite over on tumblr if you ever want to yell at me some more!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Under His Gaze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15135584) by [EllenofX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllenofX/pseuds/EllenofX)




End file.
